4 Newly Reported Ebola Cases In Nigeria Are All Linked To Patrick Sawyer

Nigerian health officials wait to screen passengers at Lagos airport. Photograph: Sunday Alamba/AP

Four new cases of Ebola were reported in Nigeria yesterday 08 August, and all of the cases were in people who had contact with Patrick Sawyer, a 40-year-old Liberian-American civil servant who last month visited from Liberia; he died from Ebola last month. Continue... 

Gregory Hartl, a spokesperson for the World Health Organization, told The Washington Post that “they’re all contacts of Patrick Sawyer,” and that they include cleaners and hospital and health care workers.

Sawyer collapsed after getting off a plane in Nigeria, having traveled from Liberia. A nurse who treated him has also contracted the virus and died.

The WHO reports that there are now 13 probable or suspected cases of Ebola in Nigeria. The news comes as Nigeria’s president declared a national state of emergency over the outbreak. Nigeria’s president also approved emergency funds equivalent to $11.7 million to “strengthen steps to contain the virus such as additional isolation centers, case management, contact tracing, deployment of additional personnel, screening at borders, and the procurement of required items and facilities,” a spokesman for the president told Reuters.

The World Health Organization also declared the current West Africa Ebola outbreak to be an international public health emergency; Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia have reported cases and deaths of the deadly virus. Nearly 1,000 people have died from the outbreak since it started earlier this year.