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 The South African woman, whose identity was not revealed, flew in to
Lagos airport from Morocco. She was being treated as a suspected
case and was being taken to Lagos' Ebola treatment center for tests
to see whether she actually had the virus.
The traveler, who lives in Cape Town, filled out a health
questionnaire on her arrival at Lagos in which she acknowledged
suffering from diarrhea and vomiting, both possible symptoms of the
Ebola hemorrhagic virus.
Around 2,300 people have died so far this year in the worst Ebola
outbreak on record which has mostly affected Liberia, Sierra Leone
and Guinea. It has also reached Nigeria and Senegal because of sick
travelers "importing" the disease. Democratic Republic of Congo has
a separate outbreak.
"This person has been in Guinea and Sierra Leone since April ... she
has symptoms," Dr. Morenike Alex-Okoh, director of Port Health
Services at Lagos airport, told Reuters. The testing process was
likely to last a few days.
Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation, has instituted Ebola
screening, including infra-red temperature scans and symptoms
checks, at its airports and ports after a Liberian-American infected
with the disease brought it to Lagos in July after flying from
Liberia. His is one of seven deaths recorded so far out of 19
confirmed cases in Nigeria.
"Nigeria cannot afford another 'importation' (of Ebola)," said Dr.
Aileen Marty, a professor of infectious diseases at Florida
International University College of Medicine.
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Marty is working with Nigerian health authorities, under the
auspices of the World Health Organization (WHO), to maintain port of
entry Ebola checks across the African oil producer.
She told Reuters the fact that the South African traveler displayed
several Ebola-like symptoms and had been in the high-risk zone
justified her being treated as a suspected case. But such symptoms
are also present in other diseases, such as malaria and cholera,
hence the need for a specific Ebola test.
(Reporting by Pascal Fletcher; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)
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