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 Patrick Sawyer, a consultant for the Liberian finance ministry in
his 40s, collapsed on Sunday after flying into Lagos, a city of 21
million people, and was taken from the airport and put in isolation
in a local hospital. Nigeria confirmed earlier on Friday that he had
died in quarantine.
"His blood sample was taken to the advance laboratory at the Lagos
university teaching hospital, which confirmed the diagnosis of the
Ebola virus disease in the patient," Chukwu told a press conference
on Friday. "This result was corroborated by other laboratories
outside Nigeria."
However, at a separate press conference held by the Lagos state
government at the same time, the city's health commissioner, Jide
Idris, said that they were only "assuming that it was Ebola" because
they were "waiting for a confirmative test to double check" from a
laboratory in Dakar.
Paul Garwood, spokesman for the World Health Organization (WHO) in
Geneva, said the U.N. health agency was also still waiting for test
results.
"We're still waiting for laboratory-confirmed results as to whether
he died of Ebola or not," he said.
It could not be immediately determined why there was a contradiction
in the comments from central government and city officials.
If confirmed, the man would be the first case on record of one of
the world's deadliest diseases in Nigeria, Africa's biggest economy
and with 170 million people, its most populous country. Ebola has
killed 660 people across Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone since it
was first diagnosed in February.
Sawyer was quarantined on arrival and had not entered the city, a
Nigerian official told Reuters.
"While he was quarantined he passed away. Everyone who has had
contact with him has been quarantined," the official said.
Liberia's finance minister Amara Konneh said Sawyer was a consultant
for the country's finance ministry.
"Our understanding is that the cause of death was Ebola," Konneh
told Reuters.
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The victim's sister had died of the virus three weeks previously,
and the degree of contact between the two was being investigated by
Liberian health ministry officials, he said.
Earlier on Friday, WHO spokesman Paul Garwood said: "I understand
that he was vomiting and he then turned himself over basically, he
made it known that he wasn't feeling well. Nigerian health
authorities took him and put him in isolation."
Nigeria has some of the continent's least adequate healthcare
infrastructure, despite access to billions of dollars of oil money
as Africa's biggest producer of crude.
Some officials think the disease is easier to contain in cities than
in remote rural areas.
"The fear of spread within a dense population would be offset by
better healthcare and a willingness to use it, easier contact
tracing and, I assume for an urban population, less risky funerary
and family rites," Ian Jones, a professor of virology at the
University of Reading in Britain, said.
"It would be contained more easily than in rural populations."
There have been 1,093 Ebola cases to date in West Africa's first
outbreak, including the 660 who have died, according to the WHO.
(Reporting by Tom Miles; Additional reporting by Tim Cocks and
Oludare Mayowa in Lagos, Kate Holtan in London, Clair MacDougall in
Monrovia, Emma Farge in Dakar and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva;
Writing by Stephanie Nebehay and Tim Cocks; Editing by Susan Fenton
and Sonya Hepinstall)
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