Nigeria completely free of Ebola

As the General Assembly, comprising of all 193
members of the United Nations meet in New York
to among other things discuss on ways to halt the
spread of the deadly Ebola Virus Disease (EVD)
ravaging three West African countries (Guinea,
Sierra Leone and Liberia), Onyebuchi Chukwu,
minister of health has revealed that Nigeria is
completely free of active Ebola cases and has
released the final contacts from surveillance.
According to Chukwu "Presently, there is no single
case of Ebola virus disease in Nigeria – none. No
cases are under treatment, no suspected cases.
There are no contacts in Lagos that are still under
surveillance, having completed a minimum of 21
days of observation.
"None of them are showing any symptoms.
Monday (22 September 2014) will mark the end of
their 21 days of observation and the plan is to get
them discharged from surveillance yesterday
(Tuesday 23 September 2014). Nigeria will be as
clean as any other country as far as Ebola virus
disease is concerned."
Until now, Rivers State had been home to over 400
contacts under medical surveillance. As of last
night, only 25 contacts remained. The deadly
disease was contained in Lagos, Nigeria's
commercial hub and Port Harcourt.
Nigeria, Africa's most populous country suffered
only 21 Ebola cases with eight deaths recorded
after the index case Patrick Sawyer, the Liberian-
America imported the deadly virus while on a trip
for a meeting of the Economic Commission of West
African States (ECOWAS) in Calabar on July 23.
As Nigeria has been able to successfully contain
the virus, preventing stigmatization of those under
surveillance as well as Ebola survivors is still a
challenge.
"Three terms became part of our lexicon:
surveillance, quarantine, and isolation.
Surveillance is sort of like house arrest. You don't
criminalize them. The person is actually a victim,
not a criminal. We monitor their movements, the
rest of the family are counselled about what
contact can and can't be done. We have contact
with them every day. You can imagine what this
effort must have been like when we had 300 in
Lagos and over 400 in Port Harcourt."
"That is the first time we are denying that
individual the comfort of his own bed. We put him
in separately from the isolation ward from those
who are confirmed. If malaria, we discharge them
to their doctor to be treated for malaria," the
minister explained.
Interestingly, the Ebola survivors in Nigeria were
managed by isolating the patients, replacing fluids
and electrolytes and in some cases, blood
transfusions were necessary.
The minister however praised the WHO Director
General, Margaret Chan for sending physicians to
Nigeria.
"We only knew about Ebola virus through our
medical books. We've never seen a single case of
Ebola virus until this year. So we needed someone
with practical experience who had seen the virus to
come and train our doctors what to do and the
rest, and then we took over. It is important that we
let the world know that WHO did well in sending us
doctors with practical experience. But we also
worked with the CDC, UNICEF, and MSF in
managing the disease," he concluded.