Nigeria Confirms First Ebola Death Outside Lagos

Nigeria confirmed Thursday the country’s first Ebola-related death outside Lagos, the country’s main international transit hub.

The victim, an unnamed doctor who died in the southeastern oil city of Port Harcourt, marks Nigeria’s sixth Ebola death in a recent outbreak of the disease primarily affecting West Africa. He is believed to have been infected by a man linked to Nigeria’s first Ebola case, Patrick Sawyer, who died in Lagos shortly after arriving there from Liberia.

The yet-unnamed doctor had died last Friday, but Nigerian Health Minister Onyebuchi Chukwu waited until Thursday to confirm the case, the BBC reports. The doctor’s wife has been put under quarantine, while an additional 70 people suspected to have had contact with him are being monitored in Port Harcourt.

While the death marks a blow to Nigeria’s efforts to contain the disease, Mr. Chukwu noted that while “the problem is not over . . . Nigeria is doing well on containment, all the disease in Nigeria were all traced to Patrick Sawyer.”

The Nigerian government said Wednesday that schools in the country would not reopen until October 13 in order to help prevent the outbreak from spreading.

Recent figures from the World Health Organization suggest Ebola has infected more than 3,000 people and killed over half of its victims, largely in West Africa. More than 240 health workers have been infected with the deadly virus, for which there is no vaccine or cure, though it is treatable and survivable. Ebola is not airborne, and is spread only when humans come into contact with the bodily fluids of those infected with the virus.

West Africa’s health ministers will be meeting later Thursday to discuss measures to address what’s become the largest-ever Ebola epidemic.

[BBC]