Ebola in Anambra state

The Anambra Commissioner of Health, Josephat
Akabuike, announced on Thursday that a hospital
has been sealed off and its workers and patients
quarantined due to Ebola disease scare.
Briefing journalists in Awka, Ms. Akabuike said the
measure followed information received by the
government that a man whose body was brought
back from Liberia at the weekend, might have died
of the killer disease. He said that information
available to the government indicated that the body
was brought back from Liberia through Lagos and
deposited in the mortuary at Nkwelle-Ezenaka in
Oyi Local Government of the state.
“Part of the briefing is to tell you what we are doing
to make sure we don’t allow the deadly virus to
come into the state.
“What actually called for this is that we have a
report that a corpse was brought through Lagos and
the deceased was said to have been taken from
Liberia where of course you know there are cases
of the disease.
“The corpse was said to have been brought to
Nigeria and deposited somewhere in Nkwelle-
Ezunaka and the ministry was alerted and that is
why we are taking all these measures.”
The commissioner said that Governor Willie Obiano
had already directed the Police Command in the
state to cordon off the place until the necessary
tests were carried out.
He further said that Federal Government had also
sent medical experts from the Federal Ministry of
Health, Abuja, to Anambra to carry out the test at
the hospital premises.
Meanwhile, Ebola has been blamed for 672 deaths
in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, according to the
World Health Organisation.
Sierra Leone has declared a state of emergency
and called in troops to quarantine epicentres of
Ebola, joining Liberia in imposing tough controls to
curb the worst ever outbreak of the virus amid
fears it could spread beyond West Africa.
Meanwhile, a Liberian man was confirmed to have
died from the virus in Lagos last Friday.
In a measure of rising international concern, Britain
on Wednesday held a government meeting on Ebola,
which it said was a threat it needed to respond to.
The outbreak of the haemorrhagic fever, for which
there is no known cure, began in the forests of
remote eastern Guinea in February, but Sierra
Leone now has the highest number of cases.
(NAN)