The corpse of a 17-year-old boy has tested positive for Ebola in Liberia, the country’s deputy Health Minister said late Monday. He added that no other case had been reported.
Ebola
Tolbert Nyenswah, who is also head of the country’s Ebola response, told newsmen that the teenager died June 24 in Nedowein, a town situated close to the country’s international airport, about 48 kilometres south of the capital, and was given a safe burial the next day.
Liberia had been the country hardest hit by last year’s Ebola outbreak in West Africa. The World Health Organisation, WHO, declared Liberia Ebola-free on May 9 after the country went 42 days without reporting a case.
Nyenswah said: “We have said over and over again that there was the possibility of a resurgence of the virus in Liberia. But our capacity is very strong.”
The deadly virus, which has killed over 11,100 people mostly in West Africa in its worst outbreak ever, is hanging on stubbornly in Guinea, where the Ebola outbreak was first reported in March 2014, and in Sierra Leone.
It was not known how the 17-year-old contracted Ebola. The town where the teenager died is far from the borders with Sierra Leone and Guinea, so Nyenswah said they were investigating whether his case might be linked to travel.
Specimens were taken from the corpse before burial, and the tests later came back positive.
“The only complication is that the person died before we tested the body as part of our surveillance system of testing living and dead people,” Nyenswah said.
Nyenswah said teams are already doing contact tracing in the Nedowein area.
“There is no need for pandemonium; people should go about their normal business,” he said.
He called the Ebola testing of the young man’s corpse “a success story for our surveillance system.”
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon had warned earlier this month that as long as there is one Ebola case in West Africa “all countries are at risk.”
• Award-winning series Africa Investigates back on Al Jazeera
•Liberia: Living With Ebola starts on Wednesday, 12 November at 22:30 GMT
Ebola
The second season of Al Jazeera’s award-winning Africa Investigates kicks off on Wednesday, 12 November 2014, asking whether the Liberian government is making the Ebola crisis worse.
“This groundbreaking series gives some of Africa’s best journalists the opportunity to pursue high-level investigative targets across the continent – using their unique perspective and local knowledge to put corruption, exploitation and abuse under the spotlight,”says Al Jazeera English’s executive producer Diarmuid Jeffreys, who adds that the first season’s Spell of The Albino won a One World Media Award and was nominated for a Royal Television Society Award.
In the first episode of the second season, Liberia: Living with Ebola, Sierra Leone’s Emmy, BAFTA and Peabody winner Sorious Samura teams up with Liberian investigative journalist Mae Azango, a winner of International Press Freedom Awards from both The Committee to Protect Journalists and Canadian Journalists for Free Expression. Working together, the pair explores the reality of living through the world’s deadliest Ebola epidemic, which has killed nearly 5 000 people in eight nations.
Sorious and Mae film with a Red Cross body collection team who risk their lives travelling around Monrovia picking up the dangerously contagious corpses of the deceased. They also spend time in an Ebola treatment unit run by Medecins Sans Frontieres and follow emergency response teams working in the Red Light slum, one of Monrovia’s poorest and most densely populated districts.
Some of these Red Cross workers are unpaid volunteers, like Robert. “I’m doing this to have this particular sickness alleviated from my country,”he says. “I love my people.”
But Sorious and Mae also encounter deep anger among Liberian health workers. Most receive $280 a month for jobs that bring them into daily, dangerous contact with Ebola victims. Many are suspicious that government corruption is preventing the distribution of money donated by the international community.
“This remarkable film gives a deeply disturbing insight into what it is like to live in a society gripped by dread of contagion and mistrust of the authorities, a place where no-one shakes hands any more, where a mother will think twice before picking up a sick child to give it comfort,”says Diarmuid. “But it is also a world in which ordinary people are making the most extraordinary sacrifices on behalf of their community – and indeed the rest of us. If the fight against this deadly virus is to be won, then it is in places like Liberia’s slums, the very poorest and most deprived on earth, where Ebola must be overcome.“
As in 2011, Africa Investigates is produced in collaboration with the Emmy-winning investigative team at Insight TWI: The World Investigates. Liberia: Living With Ebola is directed by Clive Patterson and features original music composed by Grammy Award winner Daniel Platzman.
Liberia: Living with Ebola premieres on Wednesday, 12 November 2014 at 22:30 GMT in Liberia and at 23:30 CAT, with repeats on 13 November at 10:30, 14 November at 04:30, 15 November at 17:30, and 16 November at 06:30 CAT.
MONROVIA (AFP) – Liberia is bracing for an upsurge in Ebola cases, following a grim World Health Organization assessment on Tuesday that the worst is yet to come in the fight against the killer virus.
While the WHO predicted an “exponential increase” in infections across West Africa, it warned that Liberia, which has reaped the lion’s share of misery with half of all fatalities, could initially only hope to slow contagion, not stop it.
The UN’s health arm upped the Ebola death toll Tuesday in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Nigeria to 2,288 out of 4,269 cases, noting nearly half of all infections had occurred in the past 21 days.
The WHO also evacuated its second infected medical expert, a doctor had been working at an Ebola treatment centre in Sierra Leone.
Emory University Hospital in Georgia on Tuesday admitted an American who had contracted Ebola in West Africa, but the hospital has declined to confirm it was the WHO employee.
Ebola, transmitted through bodily fluids, leads to haemorrhagic fever and — in over half of cases — death. There is no specific treatment regime and no licensed vaccine.
The fresh WHO figures underscore Ebola’s asymmetric spread, as it rips through densely populated communities with decrepit public health facilities.
Speaking Tuesday, WHO’s epidemiology chief Sylvie Briand said that the goal in Senegal and Nigeria was now “to stop transmission completely”. Senegal has announced only one infection, while Nigeria has recorded 19 infections and eight deaths.
The Democratic Republic of Congo is battling a separate outbreak which has killed 32 in a remote northwestern region, according to figures from Saturday.
“But in other locations, like Monrovia, where we have really wide community transmission, we are aiming at two-step strategies,” Briand told a briefing in Geneva, “first, to reduce the transmission as much as possible and, when it becomes controllable, we will also try to stop it completely.
“But at this point in time we need to be pragmatic and try to reduce it in the initial steps.”
A day earlier the WHO had warned that aid organisations trying to help Liberia to respond would “need to prepare to scale up their current efforts by three- to four-fold”.
Before this year’s outbreak, it noted, Liberia only had one doctor to treat every 100,000 patients in a total population of 4.4 million people.
In Montserrado county containing Monrovia, there are no spare beds at the few Ebola treatment sites operating, the WHO said, describing infectious people being driven to centres, only to return home to create “flare-ups” of deadly fever in their village.
One thousand beds are needed — far more than the 240 currently up and 260 more planned, it said.
“It’s a war against this virus … I still have hope we can win this war,” the WHO’s Briand said.
– Border closure, controls –
On Monday the 17,000 residents of Liberia’s Dolo Town, 75 kilometres (47 miles) from Monrovia, were freed from a lockdown imposed more than two weeks ago.
The quarantine including a night-time curfew had been set up amidst a surge in Ebola infections, at the same time as West Point, a slum in the capital.
In the scramble to halt the contagion, some affected countries have quarantined whole regions. Several countries have stopped flights from affected areas.
African Union commission chief Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma called Monday for travel bans to be lifted “to open up economic activities”.
But other countries have stepped up limits on the movement of people travelling from West Africa. China, one of the region’s main investors, on Tuesday announced it was reinforcing checks on people, goods and vehicles, as well as mail, arriving from affected countries.
In Gambia, customs officials said they had closed the borders to Guineans, Liberians, Nigerians and Sierraleoneans — though not to neighbouring Senegal.
Italy announced a first possible case of Ebola — a woman who had recently returned from Nigeria.
And the United States offered $10 million to pay for medical workers and equipment as part of an African Union deployment to battle the outbreak.
The Liberian government on Monday announced that the nation’s Deputy Chief Medical Doctor Abraham Borbor who was recently injected with the Anti-Ebola trial drug, ZMAPP, has died.
Minister of Information Lewis Brown disclosed this to reporters in Monrovia, the West African country’s capital city, although the late medical doctor was able to walking around on Sunday and his doctors were hopeful that he would make a full recovery.
Meanwhile, Doctor Phillip Zokonis Ireland who was in isolation along with Borbor, had been tested negative and discharged last week.
Updating on progress by government on Ebola sensitization, brown said community residents are now actively involved and the dissemination of Ebola messages is encouraging.
The minister added that government has conducted a 2-day awareness workshop in various communities to determine the response of citizens indicating that the people are now better situated in the fight to prevent spread of the virus.
Brown told reporters that four protesters involved in the recent disturbances at the West Point Township quarantined site have tested positive to the Ebola Virus Disease.
Minister Brown said government has set up a team to conduct investigation into the skirmishes in West Point after the areas was placed in quarantine last week that led to the death of one person and several persons wounded.
Brown said Vice President Joseph Boakai will visit another quarantined Ebola Isolation Center in Dolo’s town while president Sirleaf will visit the West Point quarantined Ebola center.
Police in the Liberian capital have fired live rounds and tear gas to disperse a stone-throwing crowd trying to break an Ebola quarantine imposed on their neighbourhood, as the death toll from the epidemic in West Africa hit 1,350.
Ebola, soldiers fire gunshot at protesters in Liberia
In the sprawling oceanfront West Point neighbourhood of Monrovia, at least four people were injured in clashes with security forces, witnesses said. It was unclear whether anyone was wounded by the gunfire, though a Reuters news agency photographer saw a young boy with his leg largely severed just above the ankle on Wednesday.
Liberian authorities introduced a nationwide curfew on Tuesday and put the West Point neighbourhood under quarantine to curb the spread of the disease.
“The soldiers are using live rounds,” said army spokesman Dessaline Allison, adding: “The soldiers applied the rules of engagement. They did not fire on peaceful citizens. There will be medical reports if (an injury) was from bullet wounds.”
The World Health Organization said that the countries hit by the worst ever outbreak of the deadly virus were beginning to suffer shortages of fuel, food and basic supplies after shipping companies and airlines suspended services to the region.
The epidemic of the hemorrhagic fever, which can kill up to 90 percent of those it infects, is ravaging the three small West African states of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. It also has a toehold in Nigeria, Africa’s biggest economy and most populous country.
Liberia – where the death toll is rising fastest – said its ministry of health warehouse had run out of rubber boots and bottles of hand sanitiser, essential for preventing the spread of the disease.
Still struggling to recover from a devastating 1989-2003 civil war, Liberia recorded 95 deaths in the two days to August 18th, the World Health Organization said. Since it was discovered in remote southeastern Guinea in March, the overall death toll from the outbreak has reached 1,350 from a total of 2,473 cases.
More photos:
Liberian anti ebola task force opens fire on Ebola protesters
Liberian anti ebola task force opens fire on Ebola protesters
In a related development, Liberia’s armed forces have reportedly been given orders to shoot people trying to illegally cross the border from neighbouring Sierra Leone, which was closed to stem the spread of ebola. Soldiers stationed in Bomi and Grand Cape Mount counties, which border Sierra Leone, were to “shoot on sight” any person trying to cross the border, said deputy chief of staff, Colonel Eric Dennis.
The order came after border officials reported that people have continued to cross the porous border illegally. Previously, Grand Cape Mount county had 35 known “illegal entry points,” according to immigration commander Colonel Samuel Mulbah. Illegal crossings were a major health threat, said Mulbah, “because we don’t know the health status of those who cross at night.”
Like war: The Ebola crisis
Liberia closed its borders with Sierra Leone weeks ago in an attempt to contain the ebola outbreak, which has killed more than 1100 people in West Africa so far. Meanwhile, Liberian officials are continuing to search for 17 ebola patients who fled an attack on a quarantine centre in Monrovia, raising fears they could spread the deadly disease. “We have not yet found them,” Information Minister Lewis Brown said, yesterday, adding that those who looted the place took away mattresses and bedding that were soaked with fluids from the patients.”
On Saturday, youths wielding clubs and knives raided the medical facility set up in a high school in the densely-populated West Point, some shouting “there’s no ebola”, echoing wild rumours that the epidemic has been made up by the West to oppress Africans. Authorities are now considering sealing off the area, home to around 75,000 people, although some reports suggest the infected patients may have already fled West Point.
WHO urges detention of suspect patients
Meantime, the World Health Organization, WHO, yesterday, urged the authorities in countries affected by the ebola outbreak to screen people departing international airports, seaports and major border crossings and stop those with symptoms of the virus from leaving. “Affected countries are requested to conduct exit screening of all persons at international airports, seaports and major land crossings, for unexplained febrile illness consistent with potential Ebola infection. Any person with an illness consistent with Ebola Virus Disease, EVD, should not be allowed to travel unless the travel is part of an appropriate medical evacuation,” the UN health agency said.
Our meat has no Ebola – Oyo State Bushmeat Sellers Association
On the flip side, scores of bush meat sellers, yesterday, marched peacefully to Governor Abiola Ajimobi’s office at the Oyo State Secretariat, Ibadan, complaining of low patronage due to the outbreak of ebola disease. The women under the aegis of Bushmeat Sellers Association lamented that since the announcement that the deadly disease could be caused by eating bush meat, their sales had suffered a lull.
Speaking on behalf of the association, Alhaja Risikat Odeyemi, Iyalode, Bushmeat Association, Oyo, said that it was strange that bush meat which had hitherto been taken as a special delicacy should now be seen as a poison. Her words: “Our meats do not have any Ebola virus. We don’t know why people should just be peddling rumour that would be injurious to other people. This is not good at all. They have spoilt our business without any good reason. What we heard is that the disease was contacted through the river. Why should they be so unfair?”
They said before the announcement, a grass cutter was being sold between N2,000 and N4,000 and the same thing goes for antelope and other animals. But, now they regretted that there are no sales again. “We normally stand by the roadside to invite prospective buyers. But, now when we call them to buy bush meats they always reply us saying, “Ebola”. It is the same meat we have been eating and nothing has happened to us”, Odeyemi said.
Their visit to the governor’s office, she added, was to appeal to him to help dispel the rumour that bush meat causes Ebola. At the time our correspondent left the governor’s office, the governor was yet to attend to them. Many of the bush meat sellers sat clumsily at the entrance of the gate because the security men at the gate did not allow them to move closer to the governor’s office.
US to deploy 100 medical personnel to West Africa
The United States Government has announced the deployment of 100 medical personnel to help in the fight against the Ebola Virus outbreak in some parts of West Africa. U.S. Ambassador to the African Union, AU, Mr Reuben Brigety stated this in Addis Ababa at an information-sharing session on Ebola at the AU Permanent Representatives Committee, PRC.
Brigety said the U.S will deploy 25 medical doctors and 75 nurses to the four countries affected by the virus, including Ethiopia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Nigeria. He, however, said the deployment to the ebola-affected countries was subject to AU approval, as the U.S government was ready to assist. The envoy advised African countries to also send doctors and medical personnel to provide the services needed to tackle the disease in the affected countries.
At the session, Japan announced that it had donated $1.5 million dollars to the World Health Organization fund toward fighting the virus.
Why we rejected Nanosilver — Chukwu
In Abuja, Minister of Health, Professor Onyebuchi Chukwu, explained, yesterday, that the Ebola drug, Nanosilver was rejected for failing to meet required standards. Chukwu who spoke while receiving the United States Ambassador to Nigeria, James Entwistle, in audience, said the drug did not meet basic research requirements of the National Health Research Ethics Code.
In his remarks, the ambassador disclosed that the U.S experimental drug on ebola was not sufficient to be given to Nigeria and, therefore, urged the nation to focus on isolation, screening and prevention, adding, “You have all seen the headlines over the weekend, this is an issue that we have to keep working hard on, it may be with us for a while but there are some encouraging sign.
“Your government is doing a good job on contact tracing, I noticed when I flew back here on Thursday night into the country, and before I left the plane I filled the questionnaire. I was very impressed because I had to put in my seat number which is a very good idea, so that if you have to trace the guy who was seating next to me you will know where I am. I have been very impressed by this thing so I encourage the government of Nigeria to keep at it, which I know they will.”
(AFP) – Seventeen patients infected with Ebola were unaccounted for on Sunday after they fled an armed raid on a quarantine centre in Monrovia by men who claimed the epidemic is a fiction.
Ebola
“They broke down the door and looted the place. The patients have all gone,” said Rebecca Wesseh, who witnessed the attack out the outskirts of the Liberian capital.
Her report was confirmed by residents and the head of Health Workers Association of Liberia, George Williams.
Williams said the unit housed 29 patients who “had all tested positive for Ebola” and were receiving preliminary treatment before being taken to hospital.
“Of the 29 patients, 17 fled last night (after the assault). Nine died four days ago and three others were yesterday (Saturday) taken by force by their relatives” from the centre, he said.
The attackers, mostly young men armed with clubs, shouted that President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf “is broke” and “there’s no Ebola” in Liberia as they broke into the unit in a Monrovia suburb, Wesseh said.
Residents had opposed the creation of the centre, set up by health authorities in part of the city considered an epicentre of the Ebola outbreak in the Liberian capital.
“We told them not to (build) their camp here. They didn’t listen to us,” said a young resident, who declined to give his name.
“We don’t believe in this Ebola outbreak.”
The Ebola outbreak, the worst since the virus first appeared in 1976, has claimed 1,145 lives in five months, according to the UN World Health Organization’s latest figures as of August 13: 413 in Liberia, 380 in Guinea, 348 in Sierra Leone and four in Nigeria.
MONROVIA (AFP) – Armed men attacked an Ebola isolation ward in the Liberian capital Monrovia overnight, prompting 29 patients to flee the facility, witnesses said Sunday.
“They broke down the doors and looted the place. The patients all fled,” said Rebecca Wesseh, who witnessed the attack and whose report was confirmed by residents and the head of Health Workers Association of Liberian, George Williams
The widow of late Patrick Sawyer, the Liberian who brought Ebola into Nigeria, has defended her husband’s decision to travel to Africa’s most populous country, saying he did so in desperate search for a country with better healthcare system than his own country.
Decontee Sawyer, the wife of Patrick Sawyer who brought Ebola virus to Nigeria
In an article published earlier today, TMZ Liberia Magazine quoted Decontee Sawyer, who is a radio host in New York, as explaining that Mr. Sawyer had no trust in the healthcare system in Liberia and had possibly headed to Nigeria with the hope of receiving better treatment for his ailment.
Mrs. Sawyer shared her thoughts on her Facebook profile from which TMZ Liberia sourced it for publication.
“I’ve read other reports in other papers (not the New York Times) about Patrick’s “recklessness.” I get where they’re coming from, and they certainly have the right to feel the way they do. However, as Patrick’s widow, I would like to shed some light on this from another perspective. One that only I, his wife, would know,” she wrote.
“I knew Patrick better than anybody else (including himself). He had told me many times in the past how much he didn’t trust the Liberian healthcare system. He would tell me about how a person would get checked in for one thing, and get misdiagnosed and get the wrong treatment as a result. On top of that, Patrick was a clean freak, and told me how filthy a lot of the hospitals were.
“He didn’t tell me this, but I know in my heart of hearts that Patrick was determined to get to Nigeria by all means because he felt that Nigeria would be a place of refuge. He has expressed to me many times in the past that he felt passionately about helping to be a part of strengthening Liberia’s healthcare system, but he knew it wasn’t there yet, and he wouldn’t want to take a chance with his life because a lot of people depended on him… Patrick had a passion for life, and he wouldn’t have wanted his to end. So, I bet anything that he was thinking, if I could only get to Nigeria, a way more developed country than Liberia, I would be able to get some help. How ironic.”
Many Nigerians, and even Liberians, condemned Mr Sawyer for traveling to Nigeria despite knowing that he was carrying Ebola virus before embarking on the trip. Some Nigerians on social media have described him as a “biological terrorist” arguing that he came into the country deliberately to spread the disease.
On Monday in Abuja, President Goodluck Jonathan described Mr Sawyer’s decision to travel to Nigeria as pure “madness” and “craziness.”
“Sawyer that brought this Ebola to Nigeria; his sister died of Ebola. And he started acting somehow, his country asked him not to leave the country, let them observe him, but the crazy man decided to leave and found his way here,” President Jonathan said.
In her post, Mrs. Sawyer wrote that the fact that her husband avoided contact with others at the James Sprigg Payne’s Airport in Monrovia as revealed by airport CCTV footage proved he didn’t set out to infect others with the disease and perhaps his actions were that of a dying man in desperate search for help.
“It has been reported that Patrick avoided physical contact with everyone he came across during his trip from Liberia to Nigeria. When he got to Nigeria, he turned himself in letting them know that he had just flown in from Liberia.
“Patrick went to Nigeria for help so that he can get properly diagnosed, and not misdiagnosed in Liberia. And if it came back that he did have Ebola, he trusted the Nigerian healthcare system a lot more than he trusted the Liberian’s. His action, as off as it was, was a desperate plea for help. Patrick didn’t want to die, and he thought his life would be saved in Nigeria.”
Mrs. Sawyer then took a swipe at the Liberian President, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, who said Mr Sawyer was indiscipline and disrespectful for failing to heed medical advise not to travel.
Mrs Sawyer said if President Johnson-Sirleaf had fixed the healthcare system in Liberia, her husband would not have left in search of treatment elsewhere.
“I write today, not simply because of Patrick, but because of the broken healthcare system in the Liberia, and the government’s inability under President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (and other past Presidents) to fix it. Good doctors, nurses, and other healthcare providers aren’t given the support they need to save lives.
“President Sirleaf went on CNN News throwing stones at Patrick, a man who can no longer defend himself, a man who worked tirelessly for Liberia. She should be ashamed of herself. I use to admire this woman, and was excited and proud of her accomplishment as the first woman President in the entire continent of Africa. She will always own that. We will always own that. It can’t be taken away from her. It’s something to be proud of. But this woman has failed her country,” she wrote.
Nigeria was free of Ebola until July 20 when Mr. Sawyer arrived.
He became terribly ill on his flight and was rushed to the First Consultant Hospital Obalende, Lagos, where he died on July 24.
Nigeria’s Health Minister, Onyebuchi Chukwu, said on Monday that although the Liberian government has apologized for the incidence, it was pertinent to note that Nigeria was free of Ebola Virus until its importation by the Liberian-American.
Mr. Sawyer’s action, he said, has placed unnecessary stress on Nigeria’s health system.
Since Mr. Sawyer’s death in a Lagos hospital, two other persons who had contact with him have died of the virus. At least eight others have also tested positive to the infection and have been quarantined at a Lagos hospital.
President Goodluck Jonathan has since declared a national emergency on the disease while the federal health ministry in conjunction with health ministries in the 36 states are working to prevent the spread of the virus, which has killed over 1,000 people in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone.
LIBERIA’s deputy finance minister, Sebastian Omar, who cleared Patrick Sawyer to travel, yesterday, defended himself against charges of incompetence for clearing Sawyer to travel to Nigeria for a conference. In the conversation on Facebook tracked by online publication, Premium Times, Omar stood his ground, and revealed that Sawyer was his friend.
Patrick Sawyer
Asked whether Omar saw Sawyer’s blood test results or whether he simply told him it was negative, the minister said, “As his superior, if a man tells you his sister died from Ebola and he could have been exposed do you not think it is your duty to ask the hard questions or maybe you could have reported this to the health officials? Stop making silly excuses as to not being his doctors.
This does not excuse you from asking the questions as a government official that would safeguard the lives of our citizens and your international partners. It is your duty, again as a Government official not wanting to go above and beyond his duty to safe guard our population.
Sebastian Muah Omar Tariq, a friend is dead, I do not owe you any explanation. POS (Patrick Sawyer) was a public health practitioner if you must know. The Ugandan doctor was a medical doctor if you again must know. They are no longer. So the freaking issue is not why he lied or didn’t lie to travel.
But how we address the freaking disease. If you don’t have jack to say in that direction then frankly shut up on the subject. Sebastian Muah doesn’t have time today frankly for your rants.”
Omar Tariq, oh hell yes you do owe Liberians and the international community an explanation Sebastian Muah, this is the complete arrogance of you people in government.
How do you tell us such nonsense. You have through your negligence of not asking the proper questions exposed others to such a horrible Virus and you on here talking bull.
A friend is dead I am sorry but you have some answering to do since you want to brag that you approved his travels.
Sebastian Muah the old people say empty drum can’t make noise. So you will be talking by yourself as I see you don’t know what you are talking about and as a matter of finding solution you do not have any but trying to find blame. Someone must have frustrated the hell out of you in Liberia O…. Take me to the international court since I am guilty of approving a travel.
Though the United State of America has openly denied the request by the Nigerian government to release the experimental Ebola drugs, a consignment of ZMapp arrived Liberia on Wednesday. NAIJA CENTER NEWS has learnt
A picture taken on July 24, 2014 shows staff of the Christian charity Samaritan’s Purse putting on protective gear in the ELWA hospital in the Liberian capital Monrovia. An American doctor battling West Africa’s Ebola epidemic has himself fallen sick with the disease in Liberia, Samaritan’s Purse said on July 27. AFP PHOTO
The drug, Zmapp was given to Liberia to treat two doctors who are currently suffering from the virus. The drugs arrived in two boxes on a commercial flight from the US, carried by Liberia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Augustine Ngafuan, and was uloaded at the VIP terminals, according to Reuter report.
The drug will be used to treat Liberian doctors, Zukunis Ireland and Abraham Borders who contracted the virus while treating patience.
According to U.N health agency, only about 10 to 12 doese of ZMapp have been made which make it difficult to answer the question ”who should be allowed access?”
Nigeria has lost three people to the Ebola virus including one ECOWAS staff who attended to the Liberian-American, Patrick Sawyer who intentionally came to Nigeria with the help of his government, after knowing he had the virus
Three people have died in Nigeria.
The two doctors in Liberia will be the first Africans to be given the drugs after being given to Spanish priest who couldn’t survive, Dr. Bantley and another aid worker who are showing signs of improvement.
Authorities are concerned that since the ZMapp is unproven, it could easily be said that humans are used as guinea pigs to test the drugs.
“This is not the panacea to the problem. It is at the risk of the patient,” Liberia’s Assistant Health Minister Tolbert Nyenswah told journalists at Monrovia’s main airport.
Information Minister Lewis Brown told Reuters the drug merely offered a “glimmer of hope” and its use was little more than a gamble.
Even so, the clamor for it is strong given that the contagious hemorrhagic disease is killing more than half of its victims and there is no known cure or vaccine.
“I welcome it. It is very good. Our nurses are dying. If you bring them the medication it will make them stronger to fight Ebola,” said stationery seller James Liburd, in Monrovia.
ANOTHER DOCTOR DIES
In evidence of the ethical dilemma, Melvin Korkor, the first Liberian doctor to survive Ebola, said he would not have used ZMapp when he was fighting for his life because U.S. authorities said they were not responsible for any adverse effects.
“Any drug that has not been approved by FDA should not be administered,” he told Reuters.
One of the epidemic’s most tragic consequences is the toll on health care workers who rushed in as first responders only to become infected themselves due to inadequate protection measures or diagnoses of patients that came too late or were inaccurate.
The World Health Organization said this week that 170 health care workers had been infected and at least 81 had died.
Sierra Leonean doctor Modupeh Cole became the latest medical practitioner to die of Ebola, a health ministry spokesman said on Tuesday.
He contracted the disease after treating a patient who later proved to have the virus and died. The country’s leading Ebola doctor, Shek Umar Khan, also died last month.
Eight Chinese health workers are in quarantine in Sierra Leone because they may have contracted Ebola, according to the spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Freetown, Xu Zhou.
The seven doctors and one nurse treated patients at two Chinese-run hospitals in Freetown who later died from Ebola. One of the doctors has emerged from quarantine after a 21-day observation period, Zhou told Reuters.
GUINEA CLOSES BORDER
Despite the stir caused by ZMapp, preventive public health measures will be crucial to containing the outbreak, according to the U.N. health agency.
As a result, West African and other governments, including some which have seen no cases of the virus, have taken measures intended to prevent the spread of the disease.
Guinea-Bissau has decided to close its frontier with eastern neighbor Guinea, Prime Minister Domingos Simoes Pereira told a news conference. Germany on Wednesday urged its nationals to leave Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, though the request did not apply to medical workers or German diplomatic staff, a foreign ministry spokesman said.
The outbreak has brought fresh attention to efforts to find a cure. Scientists in the United States studying Ebola say they have found how it blocks and disables the body’s ability to battle infections in a discovery that should help the search for potential cures and vaccines.
The scientists found that Ebola carries a protein called VP24 that interferes with a molecule called interferon, which is vital to the immune response.
“One of the key reasons that Ebola virus is so deadly is because it disrupts the body’s immune response to the infection,” said Chris Basler of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, who worked on the study.
Dr. Kent Brantly, the American doctor infected with Ebola released a statement Friday afternoon— his first since being brought back to the U.S.
Ebola
Brantly was working for humanitarian organization Samaritan’s Purse in West Africa, treating Ebola patients at a Liberia hospital when he contracted the deadly virus. On Saturday, August 2, he was flown to Emory University Hospital, where he has been in isolation while receiving care.
He released the following statement through Samaritan’s Purse:
“I am writing this update from my isolation room at Emory University Hospital, where the doctors and nurses are providing the very best care possible. I am growing stronger every day, and I thank God for His mercy as I have wrestled with this terrible disease. I also want to extend my deep and sincere thanks to all of you who have been praying for my recovery as well as for Nancy and for the people of Liberia and West Africa.
“My wife Amber and I, along with our two children, did not move to Liberia for the specific purpose of fighting Ebola. We went to Liberia because we believe God called us to serve Him at ELWA Hospital.
“One thing I have learned is that following God often leads us to unexpected places. When Ebola spread into Liberia, my usual hospital work turned more and more toward treating the increasing number of Ebola patients. I held the hands of countless individuals as this terrible disease took their lives away from them. I witnessed the horror firsthand, and I can still remember every face and name.
“When I started feeling ill on that Wednesday morning, I immediately isolated myself until the test confirmed my diagnosis three days later. When the result was positive, I remember a deep sense of peace that was beyond all understanding. God was reminding me of what He had taught me years ago, that He will give me everything I need to be faithful to Him.
“Now it is two weeks later, and I am in a totally different setting. My focus, however, remains the same—to follow God. As you continue to pray for Nancy and me, yes, please pray for our recovery. More importantly, pray that we would be faithful to God’s call on our lives in these new circumstances.”
Fellow American Nancy Writebol, who was working for U.S. mission group SIM, was also infected with Ebola. She returned to the U.S. Tuesday and is also at Emory receiving treatment.
In a press conference August 1st, Emory’s Dr. Bruce Ribner, said this would be the first time a patient with the Ebola virus would be treated in the U.S. and Emory is taking safety precautions seriously.
The patients were placed in the hospital’s containment unit, which is discrete from the rest of the hospital.
ABUJA (AFP) – The Liberian government complained Thursday that its citizens were being harassed and “stereotyped” in Nigeria following the death in a Lagos hospital of one of its citizens infected with Ebola virus.
Patrick Sawyer
“The attention of our embassy has been brought to several cases of harassment of Liberians especially in Lagos and other places. This harassment borders on stereotyping and sometimes expression of collective guilt,” Liberian ambassador to Nigeria, Martin George, said.
The patient who brought the virus to Lagos on July 20, Liberian finance ministry employee Patrick Sawyer, was placed under quarantine at a private hospital. He died on July 25.
“Just because the ‘index case’ came from Liberia, so ‘all Liberians in Nigeria have Ebola’. That is the message and people are being harassed,” said the diplomat.
He was speaking during a meeting the Nigerian Health minister, Onyebuchi Chukwu, held with heads of diplomatic missions in the country on developments on Ebola virus.
Nigeria on Wednesday confirmed five new cases of Ebola in Lagos and a second death from the virus, a nurse, bringing the total number of infections in sub-Saharan Africa’s largest city to seven.
“There are law-abiding Liberians living here in Nigeria who have been harassed. So I appeal for your indulgence as you frame the responses especially on the radio talk shows. People have been making all kind of derogatory remarks that have been brought to our attention,” the Liberian diplomat said.
- ECOWAS suspends meetings -
Regional grouping ECOWAS also said at the same meeting that it has suspended momentarily meetings that could bring representatives of its member states together.
ECOWAS Commission vice president Toga Mcintosh said that the management of the 15-nation grouping has decided “to suspend all meetings that will bring us together coming from our various countries”.
“Except if the mision is so essential and well guided, we will approve. All other missions, meetings will be suspended for a while.”
The suspension is initially for the whole of August, after which the situation will be reviewed for further action, an ECOWAS spokesman, Sunny Ugoh, told AFP.
The Lagos liaison office of the Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS) has been temporaily closed down and fumigated, Mcintosh told the meeting.
It was clear that some ECOWAS officials had primary contact with Sawyer in the organisation’s Lagos office when he arrived, he also said, but gave no further details.
The Nigerian health minister said Nigeria will begin to screen all outbound air travellers and if they are found to have the Ebola virus, they will be asked to stay back.
“We don’t want them to go to other countries and cause problems for those countries…. We can’t allow you to take it (Ebola virus) to your country and cause problems for them,” Chukwu said.
The Liberian Government on Thursday apologised to Nigeria over the importation of the deadly Ebola Virus by a Liberian-born American, Patrick Sawyer.
Patrick Sawyer
Sawyer arrived Lagos on July 20 from Lome but died five days after he was admitted into a hospital in Obalende when he showed Ebola virus symptons.
The Liberian-born American came into contact with 59 people in both the Murtala Mohammed International Airport and the hospital. Eight of the hospital contacts were quarantined at the Infectious Diseases Hospital in Yaba. One of them, a matron, who died on Tuesday became the first Nigerian casualty. Five others, including a female medical doctor, had as of Wednesday, tested positive to the virus.
The Liberian Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Mr. Nurudeem Mohammed, told journalists in Abuja that President Ellen Sirleaf-Johnson, was deeply sorry that Sawyer brought the virus to Nigeria.
He said that the deceased was under surveillance in Liberia but that he sneaked into Lagos.
Mohammed said, “The Liberian President President has personally called to apologise on the unfortunate development.
“She specifically said her country had declared a state of emergency over the Ebola epidermic in Liberia.
‘She equally apologised that Sawyer ignored medical advice and escaped out of Liberia.”
However, hopes that the United States may send Zmapp, the experimental drug for Ebola virus treatment, appear dashed going by US President Barack Obama’s declaration that it was too early for West African countries hit by the outbreak to have it.
Obama made the US position known at a news conference at the end of an African summit on Wednesday. While he spoke at the event, the Minister of Health, Onyebuchi Chukwu, told journalists in Abuja that he had written the US Centre for Disease Control requesting for ZMapp.
On Thursday, Chukwu also told journalists that he had yet to receive a response from the centre.
But Obama, according to The Independent of London, said he lacked enough information to give the green light on distributing the drug, insisting the world must “let science guide us” on its use.
“I don’t think all the information is in on whether this drug is helpful,” the US President said, adding that “Ebola virus both currently and in the past is controllable if you have a strong public health infrastructure in place.”
He said, “We’re focusing on the public health approach right now, but I will continue to seek information about what we’re learning about all the drugs going forward.”
The Cable News Network also reported on Thursday that Obama said, “The countries affected(by the virus) are the first to admit that what has happened is that their public health systems have been overwhelmed. They weren’t able to identify and then isolate cases quickly enough.
“As a consequence, it spread more rapidly than has been typical with the periodic Ebola outbreaks that occurred previously.”
But Chukwu told journalists in Abuja on Thursday that he was not aware that the US had turned down requests for the experimental drug.
The minister, who inaugurated Defence Identification Centre at the Mogadishu Cantonment Abuja, said he was optimistic that Nigeria would get positive response from the US.
Chukwu explained that the seeming delay might be as a result of issues relating to the production and supply of the drugs.
He stated also that the data of the drugs were still being collected since it had been used on human beings.
Chukwu however added that for now, nobody was sure of the efficacy of the drug and whether its side effects would outweigh its benefits or not.
He said, “Well, we are waiting for a response from them (US); we have made the request but of course, we believe that they will respond to us.
“But we also know that; one, this is an experimental drug, some of the data required are now being collected because it is now being used on people.
“We are not completely sure yet of its efficacy; we are not yet completely sure if the side effects would outweigh its benefits, and then secondly, since it is an experimental drug, it means it has not been produced in commercial quantity.
“So obviously, given the demand all over the world, may be, they are having challenges about the supply.”
Chukwu commended the military for establishing the first Defence Identification Centre in Sub -Saharan Africa, which according to him, is in consonance with best practices in combat casualty identification.
He said the centre would be useful in the storage of the DNA samples of serving military personnel, identification of crash victims and victims of terror attacks.
Also at the event attended by the Minister of Defence, Gen. Aliyu Gusau, and all the service chiefs and heads of security agencies in the country, the Chief of Defence Staff, Air Chief Marshal Alex Badeh, urged military and security personnel to utilise the centre by providing their blood samples.
Badeh said the centre would make it possible for all fallen military personnel to be identified and given a proper burial.
It was gathered that the military leadership decided to establish the centre after 46 soldiers of the 234 Battalion of the Nigerian Army, Monguno, burnt to death in an accident.
According to him, the 46 soldiers were buried to the chagrin of their families who complained that their corpses were not identified.
Don’t close borders against Nigerians
At another function where the Health Minister met with representatives of embassies and international agencies in Nigeria, Chukwu pleaded that foreign borders should not be closed against Nigerians.
He said it would be wrong for any country to do so since Nigeria had not closed its own borders.
He said, “We are prepared to treat every infected person . Representatives of the various foreign countries in Nigeria should advise their home countries against closing their borders against Nigerians because everything is being done to contain the spread of the disease.
“We will be destroying the whole world totally if every country should close down their borders. But if you think closing down your own borders will help you, go ahead and do it.
“We have not closed down our land borders because we are weighing all possibilities. The ministry of health will not be the last to advise the Federal Government to close the borders if we are convinced that doing so is necessary.
“Unless we are sure that all our land borders are fully secured, closing the border in Nigeria will be counter-productive because we still have many porous borders which foreigners would explore without being screened.”
He commended the international community, the World Bank, the ECOWAS and the private sector for supporting Nigeria’s efforts at combating the disease
Chukwu also said Nigeria would not allow foreigners infected with the Ebola virus to travel out for treatment.
He said that WHO had noted that about 1, 700 persons had been infected with the virus and that more than 900 of them had died since the outbreak of the disease.
The minister said, “This was the figure released yesterday (Wednesday) and it could have been more today.
“If the incubation period of the virus had shifted a little bit, the Liberian- born American , Mr Patrick Sawyer, who imported the disease would have after participating in the ECOWAS summit in Calabar, Cross River State, returned to the US where it would have manifested.
“This means that currently, the whole world is in danger. For Nigeria, it is a national emergency but for the whole world, it is a global emergency. Everyone, every nation and every individual is at risk.
“Clearly, a victim is condemned to prison by the disease but he or she is not condemned to death. The victim is in prison because he is quarantined when suspected to have the virus and isolated when he has the disease. It is not condemnation to death.
“So, having Ebola virus is not a death sentence. People can survive it and an international research is still ongoing to make sure that any carrier of the virus survives.
“It is true that we are in possession of the manifest of the passengers that flew in the same aircraft with Sawyer from Lome to Lagos but the problem is that the seats in the aircraft were free so we have to go after all the 48 passengers.
“All those who landed with him in Lagos were immediately placed under surveillance alongside all the airport staff and hospital personnel who had direct contact with them.
“At the moment, one or two of the passengers are hiding . Some of the primary contacts, against our advice, had even left Lagos and travelled to other cities.
“We have put in place the infrared tarmac detectors gadgets to screen outgoing and incoming passengers at the Lagos and Abuja airports. We are also screening in 49 land borders, 13 airports, and 18 sea borders.
“Currently Nigeria has diagnosed seven Ebola virus victims. The figure included the late Sawyer. There are six Nigerians and one of them unfortunately died on Tuesday. Others are under investigation.”
The minister added that medical personnel were the only people allowed to wear protective gloves in the hospitals.
He called on non-medical personnel at the borders to stop wearing protective gloves.
He said the Federal Government was ready to work with the Saudi Arabia authorities on how to ensure that pilgrims were well screened before being allowed to participate in the Holy pilgrimage.
Chukwu, who lamented the deteriorating state of health workers who had contracted Ebola, urged the international community to assist Nigeria in combating the menace.
He also announced that “there will be introduction of life insurance scheme for the health workers that will be recruited so that it would go a long way in helping the family of the doctor when issue of Ebola arises.”
The minister added, “The issue of Ebola is affecting our health workers but we are assuring them that government is doing everything possible to protect them; the health workers the ministry is going to recruit will have life insurance so that when anything happens, the family of the doctor will not suffer the loss.”
ECOWAS closes Lagos office
The VicePresident of ECOWAS, Dr. Toga McIntosh, said the sub regional organisation was in support of all strategies being employed by Nigeria to stop the spread of the Ebola virus.
McIntosh disclosed that the regional body had closed down its Lagos office pending when health officers would declare it fit for reopening.
He confirmed that ECOWAS invited Sawyer to its annual retreat in Calabar alongside other ECOWAS ambassadors, national officers, unit heads, and heads of ECOWAS institutions.
He said, “Our protocol officers, including the driver that went to meet Sawyer at the airport are among those under surveillance and are under careful observation. We are monitoring them very closely.
“Also, we have suspended all our activities for a while. In our Lagos office where we initially hosted the late Sawyer, we are collaborating with the Lagos State Government to fully fumigate the entire premises because the vehicle which was used to take him to the hospital is in the compound.
“He had interacted with people used the toilets and other facilities.
At the moment we have closed down our office pending when the health officers will declare it fit for reopening.
Also, the Officer in charge of the WHO in Nigeria, Dr. Rex Mpazanje, said Ebola virus in Nigeria had been contained at the primary contact level.
He commended Nigeria for declaring an epidemic when the case was discovered.
However, the Liberian Ambassador to Liberia, Prof. Al-Hassan Conteh, said the attention of the embassy had been drawn to several cases of harassment of Liberians in Lagos and other places in Nigeria.
He said, “I think that as we combat this disease, it is important to carry out a campaign that association is not concession. The fact that the index case came from Liberia, does not mean that all Liberians in Nigeria are infected with the Ebola virus.”
Popular Nollywood actor who went to Monrovia, Liberia for business has fled the country over Ebola outbreak.
He revealed this through his istagram handle today saying he won’t be ashamed to admit it.
Jim admitted that his business plans were not concluded but had to leave as the news ”scares the Jesus out of him”
“Monrovia, unfinished biz (business); Leavin(g) tonite(tonight). Nt (Not) ashamed to admit. Tis ish(issue) scares the Jesus outta me. #Ebola!!!!” he said.
We were under pressure to release victim – Hospital
By Sola Ogundipe, Olasunkanmi Akoni, Lawani Mikairu, Daniel Eteghe & Gabriel Olawale
Lagos—Arik Air yesterday said it had suspended flight operations to Liberia and Sierra Leone following the death last week, of a Liberian, Mr. Patrick Sawyer, of the dreaded Ebola disease, even as it advised that all inbound flights into Nigeria from any of the Ebola affected countries be immediately suspended by the Federal Government.
Ebola
Sawyer flew into Nigeria onboard Asky Airline to attend an ECOWAS conference in Calabar, Cross River State.
This came as First Consultants Medical Centre Ltd, Obalende, Lagos, the hospital where the first Ebola victim in Nigeria died, said it was under serious pressure to release the victim.
Confirming the suspension of the flights yesterday, Arik Air General Manager, Public Relations, Mr Ola Adebanji said “As a result of the first Ebola virus death officially confirmed in Lagos, and involving a Liberian national who flew on a foreign (non-Nigerian) based airline from Monrovia via Lome (Togo) into the city last week, Arik Air will be suspending operations into Monrovia (Liberia) and Freetown (Sierra Leone) effective July 28, 2014.”
“The suspension will be in force until further notice. This decision is a pre-cautionary measure aimed at safeguarding the precious lives of Nigerians. Arik Air is taking this important measure as a concerned corporate citizen bearing interest of Nigerians at heart.“
According to him, the airline acknowledged steps the Federal Government of Nigeria was currently taking to prevent the spread of the deadly Ebola virus, saying “however, we feel compelled to take the decision to immediately suspend services into the two Ebola affected countries due to our interest in the well being of Nigerians.”
He explained that at the early stages of the development across West Africa, the Gambian government took the proactive decision to stop airlines, including Arik Air, from bringing inbound passengers from Monrovia, Conakry, Guinea, and Freetown into Banjul.
Adebanji added “Hence, in line with the actions taken by the Gambian Government, we trust, and are confident, that the Federal Government of Nigeria shall take all steps necessary to control and curtail the spread of the virus. We humbly suggest that as a first step, all inbound flights into Nigeria, originating from any of the Ebola-affected countries, be immediately suspended.”
Meanwhile, First Consultants Medical Centre Ltd, Obalende, Lagos, the hospital where the first Ebola victim in Nigeria died, has spoken out on the circumstances surrounding the incident.
In a statement by the hospital’s Chief Consultant/ Medical Director, Dr B.N. Ohiaeri and the Senior Consultant Physician and Endocrinologist, Dr. A.S. Adadevoh, it said the hospital was under pressure to release the victim.
According to the statement, “He was fully conscious and gave his clinical history and told us he was a senior diplomat from Liberia. We refused to let him out of the hospital in spite of intense pressure as we were told he was a senior ECOWAS official who had an important role to play at the ECOWAS convention in Calabar. The initial test result from the Lagos University Teaching Hospital laboratory indicated a signal of possible Ebola Virus Disease, but required confirmation.
“We then took the further step of reaching out to senior officials in the office of the Secretary of Health of the United States of America, who promptly assisted us with contacts at the Centre for Disease Control and World Health Organisation regional laboratory centre in Senegal. Jointly working with the state, Federal agencies and international agencies, we were able to obtain confirmation of Ebola Virus Disease (Zaire strain). The gentleman subsequently died on Friday at 6.50am (25th July, 2014).”
Following the death of the patient, the duo said there was “orderly temporary shutdown of the hospital with immediate evacuation of in-house patients. This was followed by appropriate professional removal of the body and its incineration under WHO guidelines witnessed by all appropriate agencies,” noting that the reopening of the hospital would also be in accordance with WHO guidelines.
The statement added that in keeping with World Health Organisation guideline, the hospital had been shut down briefly for full decontamination.
Meanwhile, a cross section of Lagos residents has urged the state and federal governments to spread their dragnet nationwide to ensure that all the co- passengers aboard the Asky aircraft that brought the victim to Nigeria are quickly located and screened for the virus.
Speaking to Vanguard at the departure wing of the Murtala Mohammed International Airport in Lagos, a middle-aged man, who identified himself as Olukayode, said it was not good enough for the co-passengers to have been allowed to go away without ensuring their health had not been compromised.
Another passenger who pleaded anonymity said screening of people should have been adopted earlier to stop the spread of the disease.
