{"id":1008,"date":"2014-08-29T20:17:19","date_gmt":"2014-08-29T20:17:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=1008"},"modified":"2014-08-29T20:17:19","modified_gmt":"2014-08-29T20:17:19","slug":"how-the-ebola-virus-got-to-rivers-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=1008","title":{"rendered":"How the Ebola virus got to Rivers state"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rivers State Commissioner of Health, Dr. Samson Parker, has declared that the advent of the dreaded Ebola virus in the state is currently posing a challenge to the state that is tantamount to a war time situation.<\/p>\n

He said the state Governor Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, has pledged to provide funds to enable the state procure all relevant materials as well as the services of medical experts from Nigeria and abroad to make sure the Ebola virus is quickly contained in the state.<\/p>\n

Dr. Parker told journalists at his office, in Port Harcourt,\u00a0on Friday, that the late Dr. Iyke Samuel Enemou, who treated Olu Ibikunle Koye, a Nigerian diplomat working with the Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS, was aware that the diplomat was a carrier of the Ebola virus.<\/p>\n

He disclosed: \u201cHe had received the late Dr. Patrick Sawyer in Lagos. Upon developing the symptom confided in a female colleague, called Lillian, who contacted the late Dr. Enemuo. It was after contact was established with Dr. Enemuo that Olu Ibikunle Koye flew to Port Harcourt to see Dr. Enemuo\u201d.<\/p>\n

To conceal his movement, Koye, who had been quarantined amongst other people for having primary contact with the late Dr. Sawyer, the Liberian-American who transmuted the Ebola virus into Nigeria, sneaked out of the isolation unit where he was being observed and took a flight to Port Harcourt and switched of his phone so that he cannot be reached or traced should he answer a call.<\/p>\n

On arrival in Port Harcourt, the commissioner for health revealed that Koye obfuscate being traced, checked into a Mandate Gardens, a local hotel in the Rumunokoro area in Obio\/Akpor Local Government Area. The hotel is within the Rumunokoro area where Dr. Enemuo\u2019s private health facility, Sam Steel Clinic.<\/p>\n

Dr. Parker explained: \u201cFrom what we have gathered so far, Dr. Enemuo, knowing full well that Koye was positive of the Ebola virus took some measure of precaution to protect himself while treating Koye. Knowing the enormity of what he was doing, Dr. Enemuo upon Koye\u2019s departure for Lagos poured bleach all over the room that Koye slept in order to sanitise the place\u201d.<\/p>\n

He continued: \u201cUpon developing the ebola symptom, Dr. Enemuo approach one of our colleagues for treatmemt at Green Heart Hospital, along Evboh Road, in G.R.A. Dr. Enemuo did not tell the doctor that was treating him the truth. He merely told him that he had fever. He lied. He did not tell the doctor that was treating him his full story\u201d.<\/p>\n

But the doctor a nice and conscientious professional suspected that Dr. Enemuo was either hiding something or was suffering from a strange ailment because he proved negative to malaria, fever and typhoid fever. To be sure of what he was doing, he spoke to other very experienced doctors about the strange case he was handling in his hospital.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr. Parker said: \u201cHe even invited some his colleagues to come over to his hospital to study Dr. Enemuo\u2019s medical history. Of course, the news of the Ebola virus was all everywhere, so, they were afraid to go. None of them showed up at the hospital where Dr. Enemuo was being treated. His condition continued to detoriotate and he eventually died and his body was taken to the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital, UPTH.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Commissioner for Health further disclosed: \u201cWhen news got to Koye that the doctor that treated him in Port Harcourt had died, he collapsed. It was then he opened up and confessed that Dr. Enemuo had treated him when he travelled to Port Harcourt. He confessed that he sneaked out of quarantine to Port Harcourt\u201d.<\/p>\n

Dr. Parker informed journalists that 60 more people who had secondary contact with Koye were quarantined last night bringing the total so far to 100, adding \u201cour contact tracing team is working seriously to make sure we contain the spread of the Ebola virus in Rivers State. \u201c.<\/p>\n

He said the widow of Dr. Enemuo, has been flown to Lagos for treatment where the National Treatment Centre for the Ebola Virus is located. \u201cWe transferred her to Lagos for two reasons: she wanted to leave this zone and second, we transferred her to enable us concentrate on tracking those who have had secondary contacts with Koye.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a perfect synergy between the federal government and the Rivers State government on combating the officer in Lagos. While the Minister of Health, Dr. Onyebuchi Chukwu, is the leading officer of the National Stakeholders Committee, I am the incident officer in Rivers State. There is also another incident officer in Lagos were the national treatment centre is situated\"ebola\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rivers State Commissioner of Health, Dr. Samson Parker, has declared that the advent of the dreaded Ebola virus in the state is currently posing a challenge to the state that is tantamount to a war time situation. He said the state Governor Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, has pledged to provide funds to enable the state procure […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":154,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[39,40],"class_list":["post-1008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national","tag-ebola-virus","tag-rivers-state"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/ebola1.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4oswh-gg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1008"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1008\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1009,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1008\/revisions\/1009"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}