The federal government has announced that not less than 21 people have been quarantined in Enugu State, out of the 198 persons who made secondary contact with the 10 primary contacts that were infected with Ebola virus.
According to ThisDay, this was made known on Wednesday by the Minister of Information, Labaran Maku, after the weekly Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting in Abuja.
The minister also revealed that Nigerian medical experts and researchers are working in conjunction with their colleagues in the US to produce a vaccine for the Ebola virus.
He said the National Health Research Ethics Committee, Nigeria, which has been approved to use an experimental Ebola drug ZMapp for the treatment of infected patients.
Maku assured that of those who had primary contact with Patrick Sawyer, the Liberian man who brought Ebola to Nigeria had been quarantined, while secondary contacts had been traced and were under surveillance.
According to him, 198 people have so far been traced out of which 177 are in Lagos and currently under surveillance, while 21 persons in Enugu were also being monitored by health specialists.
The minister said the outbreak of the deadly virus in the state was exported by a nurse who disobeyed medical instructions and somehow travelled to Enugu after having contact with the late Patrick Sawyer, the Liberian man who brought Ebola to Nigeria.
“All those who she was in contact with, including her husband, are under quarantine. The medical team has been able to trace all those who made contact with her,” he said.
He also revealed that health workers had been deployed to all the nation’s border units, airports and seaports to access people coming and going through the entry point.
“We are calling on citizens specifically to cooperate. If health workers say you have had contact with A, B, C, don’t travel; respect that judgment. It is very important. In one or two cases where we have had disobedience, we lost one of them and this one now moved with it to another place (Enugu). So we are urging Nigerians, please to help us in making sure that all these messages and appeals we are making are implemented” Maku said.
It would be recalled that three states on August 11, three states reportedly beef up security in their various boarders to scrutinise people going and coming into their states as part of efforts to check the spread of the deadly Ebola virus.
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