Ebola scare: Ten quarantined as FG dispatches medical team to Calabar

Contrary to claims of an Ebola outbreak in Calabar, Cross River State, Nigeria is still a World Health Organization-certified Ebola free country‎, the Federal Ministry of Health has said.

A staff of the hospital, who craved anonymity yet spoke confidently said: “A patient was brought in on Tuesday, vomiting, stooling and bleeding from the nose and mouth”.

Media reports say that a man had allegedly died at the University of Calabar Teaching Hospital in Nigeria due to the viral hemorrhagic fever, but the incident is unconfirmed.

Reported cases of Ebola have dropped in 2015, as governments and medical experts have sought to prevent the disease from resurfacing.

According to the Director of the National Centre for Disease control (NCDC) Prof.

He assured Nigerians that there was nothing to fear about as appropriate measures have been taken to protect the people and even those who might have had contact with the patient.

He further said that the Federal Government team is already on ground to assist the state.

“But judging from the information I have received so far, I am 90 per cent sure that it is not Ebola”, Omini said.

“So we have to take the scientific approach to such rumour, going on locus to Calabar and all that, taking samples, observing the required public health protocols and then going to our reference laboratories”. “We go Chase Ebola Comot” which means “No cause for worry, we will chase Ebola away”.

A statement by Dr Queenet Kalu, Chairman, Medical Advisory Committee (CMAG), on behalf of the Medical Director of the hospital, said the public would be informed as soon as results of the blood samples are released, adding that the hospital management had quarantined those identified to have had contacts with the patient.

Last year, Nigeria was one of the countries that suffered from the Ebola virus epidemic after the disease was introduced into the country on 20 July 2014 by an infected Liberian man.