Rivers State Official Confirms Suspected Case Of EBOLA in Port Harcourt

A suspected case of Ebola Virus Disease, EVD, has been detected in Port Harcourt, the Rivers state capital, a highly placed official of the Rivers state Government has confirmed to premium times. The official said,

"Yes, there was a case of Ebola death. We are tracking everybody." Seventy people suspected to have had contact with the case have been tracked and quarantined, the official said.

 It was reported yesterday that a doctor in the Rivers state capital had died from what appeared to be Ebola. The unnamed doctor, according to reports from Sahara Reporters, secretly treated a diplomat who had contact with Patrick Sawyer, the Liberian-American, who brought the virus to Nigeria. 

The doctor reportedly died on Friday, while his wife had also taken ill and now quarantined in Port Harcourt. The diplomat treated by the doctor is still alive, the report said. The diplomat is believed to be among those who met Mr. Sawyer on his arrival in Lagos. He then flew to Port Harcourt where he took ill. He was treated at an unnamed hotel in the Rivers state capital, an official said. 

The doctor's hospital, Good Heart Hospital, as well as the hotel where he treated the diplomat, have been shut down, reports say. This development, if confirmed will be a big blow to Nigeria's effort to contain the deadly virus. With only one case being treated in Lagos, the Minister of Health had declared Tuesday that Nigeria had succeeded in checkmating the spread of the virus in the country.