Ebola: FG dispatches medical team to Calabar, Teaching Hospital shutdown

An Ebola scare has been reported in southern Nigeria, a year after the country was declared free of the virus, with a man reportedly dead shortly after being admitted to hospital in Calabar, Cross Rivers State. Abdulsalam Nasidi, dismissed the possibility that the patient may have been killed by Ebola.

Reports say the patient, whose identity could not be ascertained, was brought in from Akpabuyo Local Government Area of Cross River State on Tuesday with high body temperature while at the same time was vomiting, stooling and bleeding from nose.

The Hospital accident and emergency ward has already been quarantined in order to curtail any spread in the eventuality that it was a case of Ebola.

The Guardian further gathered that all the nurses and doctors that handled the patients have been quarantined while the suspected Ebola patients have been isolated in a special room.

She said, “On Wednesday October 7, 2015, we managed a patient, who presented with symptoms mimicking viral Haemorrhagic fever”.

Reacting to a question concerning persons quarantined, the Chairman of the Medical Advisory Committee of the hospital, Dr. Queeneth Kalu, who represented the CMD said: “I mentioned that in my press statement, the number of people; fifteen people”.

Our correspondent, who went round the tertiary health facility in Calabar on Thursday, learnt that those quarantined were medical personnel and others within the ward moments before the patient died. “There is no need for the public to be scared of EVD as it has not been confirmed”.

The Ebola virus arrived in Nigeria in July previous year when travelling Liberian businessman Patrick Sawyer collapsed in Lagos airport.