Three people have been taken to the Ebola Virus Disease quarantine centre at Oduoha, Emohua Local Government Area of Rivers State.
The State Commissioner for Health, Sampson Parker, made this known on Sunday just as the Federal Government said another emergency meeting of the National Council of Health over the EVD would hold in Abuja on Monday(today). The last meeting took place on August 11, 2014.
Parker, who addressed journalists, said those quarantined were a doctor, a pharmacist and a woman who came into contact with Dr, Iyke Enemuo,who died of the virus in Port Harcourt on August 22.
The pharmacist and the doctor are members of staff of Sam Steel Hospital while the nurse worked at the Good Heart Hospital where Enemuo died.
Sam Steel Hospital was founded by Enemuo, who contracted Ebola while treating an ECOWAS diplomat, Koye Olu-Ibukun, who travelled to Port Harcourt after coming into contact with the Liberian-American, Patrick Sawyer. Sawyer died from the virus in Nigeria.
The Health commissioner said, “They (pharmacist, nurse and doctor) have not been confirmed (as having Ebola) and we are waiting for the result of the investigation today (Sunday.”
Parker, who as of 8pm on Sunday had not made the outcome of the tests public, also confirmed that Enemuo’s widow was at the isolation centre in Lagos where she is receiving treatment having tested positive to the virus.
Some 200 primary and secondary contacts have been traced, although about 60 had yet to be spoken to, he added. None of them had shown symptoms.
The commissioner said, “I have been telling you before now that almost 200 persons have been line-traced. Out of this number, we are still to be in touch with about 60 of them.
“But 50 high risk contacts have been identified. Because of stigma and the rest of them, these persons are not coming up but we are still on them.
“We are concentrating on the names we have to capture in our (monitoring) activities but the good news is that we have been making good progress in checking the spread of Ebola.”
When one of our correspondents visited the quarantine centre on Saturday, he noticed that it was undergoing reconstruction.
As of 11am on Saturday when he left, no single patient had been brought there.
When informed of this development, Parker replied, “I am briefing you now. Operations are by the minute. They are three there now. They won’t let you into the centre now. That place is restricted. Probably when you went there, there were none, but I am telling you now that I was there when they were being brought in.”
The commissioner said Governor Rotimi Amaechi would meet with religious leaders on Monday (today) and traditional rulers in the state on Tuesday.
He counselled the people that Ebola was not a death sentence, stressing that those who came into contact with Enemuo and Koye should come up early for screening.
Parker said, “People should know that Ebola is not a death sentence and that they should come out. I must tell you that in Lagos, most of them that came up early survived. Only the ones that were going from one church to the other until their case degenerated, died.
“We must let the public know that any one that came into contact with primary and secondary contacts to Dr. Enemuo or the clinics and the hotel should voluntarily contact us. It does not mean they are infected. All we need is just to observe them.
“Chances of survival are very high. It is very important the members of the public know this so that we do not waste time looking for people who are hiding. We know some persons are hiding but we are advising them to come out.
“Some of them are running into churches and most of them are laying hands on them without knowing.
“People should please check their level of anointing before they do that. This is a strong advice for pastors .”
Parker also said the movement of corpses within and outside Rivers State would be supervised henceforth.
He said people must have the death certificates to enable the government to ascertain the cause of the death of their loved ones.
“People cannot just move corpses here and there without clearance with the Ministry of Health. In fact, the police could stop you and ask for your clearance. Before corpses are released from the mortuary, the attendants must demand clearance documents.”
The commissioner said the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital, Sam Steel Hospital, Mandate Hotels and Good Heart Hospital had been decontaminated.
He added that the state now had a mobile laboratory for testing people. Punch..
