Nigeria Confirms First Ebola Death Outside Lagos, But Officials Insist Containment Efforts Are Working
Nigeria announced the first Ebola-related death outside of its capital, Lagos. The news seems to have confirmed the fears of many: Despite extensive efforts to contain the Ebola outbreak, the virus will still manage to widen its grasp in Nigeria. The unnamed victim marks the sixth confirmed Ebola death in Nigeria, and government officials in the country are doing all they can to stall the outbreak’s spread.
Despite Ebola now extending outside of Lagos' border, Nigerian Health Minister Onyebuchi Chukwu has affirmed that “Nigeria is doing well on containment.” Chukwu explained that, so far, all Nigerian cases of Ebola, including this most recent death, can be traced back to Patrick Sawyer. Sawyer is the Liberian-born American who became the first individual to die from Ebola in Nigeria earlier this summer. Time reported that the most recent Nigerian Ebola victim was a doctor who previously worked with Sawyer. Currently the deceased’s wife, along with 70 others, are being monitored for possible Ebola symptoms in Port Harcourt.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Nigeria, the most populous African nation, currently has 17 suspected Ebola cases, 13 lab-confirmed cases, and now six confirmed deaths. In an effort to stop the outbreak’s further spread in the nation, the Nigerian government announced on Wednesday that all schools would stay closed until Oct. 13, a move that was greeted by mixed opinions.
As of now, the Ebola outbreak has only affected four African countries: Nigeria, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea. Nigeria does not share a land border with any of the three other infected nations and is able to trace all Ebola cases to a single patient. Liberia is without doubt the hardest hit country by the Ebola outbreak, with 1,378 clinical cases reported so far, but the World Health Organization suspects the actual number of cases may be two to four times higher.
Treatment centers in Liberia are quickly becoming overwhelmed as more possibly infected patients are venturing out from “shadow-zones” where people fearing authorities won’t let doctors enter, The Associated Press reported. "This phenomenon strongly suggests the existence of an invisible caseload of patients who are not being detected by the surveillance system," the UN health agency said. This has "never before been seen in an Ebola outbreak.” Prompted by the recent surge in case numbers, WHO has made plans to deal with the virus for a further six to nine months, during which, WHO estimates, 20,000 individuals may be infected with the virus before the outbreak’s end.