{"id":1234,"date":"2014-09-02T07:42:14","date_gmt":"2014-09-02T07:42:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=1234"},"modified":"2014-09-02T07:42:14","modified_gmt":"2014-09-02T07:42:14","slug":"elderly-woman-tests-positive-for-ebola-in-rivers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=1234","title":{"rendered":"Elderly woman tests positive for Ebola in Rivers"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ebola\"<\/a><\/p>\n

One of the three persons taken to the Ebola virus quarantine centre in Oduoha, Emohua Local Government Area of Rivers State, has tested positive for the disease.<\/p>\n

The latest case, an elderly woman, contracted the virus in Good Heart Hospital, the health facility where Iyke Enemuo, the doctor who treated a Nigerian ECOWAS diplomat, Koye Olu-Ibukun, died last week.<\/p>\n

The two others \u2013 a doctor and a pharmacist \u2013 tested negative. Even though they had been released from the centre,\u00a0\u00a0 another round of tests will however\u00a0\u00a0 be carried out to reconfirm their status.<\/p>\n

The doctor and the pharmacist are members of staff of Sam Steel Clinic, a health facility founded by\u00a0\u00a0 Enemuo.<\/p>\n

Enemuo whose sister, Chinyere,\u00a0\u00a0 was taken to the quarantine centre, will be buried next week.<\/p>\n

The Minister of Health, Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu, and the Rivers State Commissioner for Health, Dr. Sampson Parker, made these developments known\u00a0\u00a0 in Abuja and Port Harcourt on Monday.<\/p>\n

Chukwu, at the opening of the 2nd National Council on Health meeting on the outbreak of the EVD in Nigeria, also said that the\u00a0\u00a0 Federal Government\u00a0\u00a0 had indicated interest to participate in the clinical trials of two Japanese vaccines to combat the disease.<\/p>\n

The minister, who said the government had also applied for other experimental drugs, including TKM-Ebola,<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 dispelled rumours of an\u00a0\u00a0 outbreak of the disease in the Federal Capital Territory.<\/p>\n

He said that\u00a0\u00a0 investigation had revealed the person involved was\u00a0\u00a0 a sickle cell patient.<\/p>\n

Chukwu said, \u201cThe Treatment Research Group which I had informed you about, has been working hard to identify experimental drugs like Zmapp<\/em>, and also make recommendations to government on further research on these drugs as well as vaccines for EVD treatment and isolation.<\/p>\n

\u201cFollowing the TRG\u2019s recommendations and in consultation with NAFDAC and NHREC, Nigeria has indicated interest to participate in the clinical trials for two candidate EVD vaccines and we are considering that a third may be added to the list. We have also applied for experimental drugs such as TKM-Ebola<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe TRG has submitted a detailed profile and brief on the oral antiviral agent which the Japanese government has offered to make available to affected countries through the World Health Organisation. We are now considering the profile and brief to enable us to reach a final decision on making it available to our patients.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur initial knowledge of the agent is that it has been shown to have strong antiviral activity against the influenza virus following phases I and II human trials, it is now going through phase III clinical trials; it is shown to have strong antiviral property against Ebola virus in vitro<\/em> and in vivo.<\/em> These and the fact that it is considered safe, having passed through phases I and II clinical trials, makes it good candidate drug for use in emergency situation as the EVD.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chukwu also gave an update of the EVD since its outbreak in the country, adding that government\u2019s performance in sustaining the spread of the disease had been lauded by all stakeholders.<\/p>\n

According to him, as of August 31, 2014, the total number of cases of EVD in Nigeria stood at 17 while the total number of cases treated at the isolation ward in Lagos State is 14.<\/p>\n

Also, the total number of those discharged is seven\u00a0\u00a0 while the total number of deaths among those treated in Lagos is five.<\/p>\n

The total number currently under treatment in Lagos is two.<\/p>\n

Chukwu said the three\u00a0\u00a0 confirmed cases not treated in Lagos comprised Olu-Ibukun, Enemuo and the elderly woman in Port Harcourt.<\/p>\n

He said, \u201cTwo others who came into contact with the late Enemuo\u00a0\u00a0 have tested negative for the EVD but the laboratory tests will be repeated to reconfirm their status.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow as of August 31, 2014, the number of contacts under surveillance in Lagos stood at 72 while in Port Harcourt, the total number of contacts under surveillance stood at 199. There is nobody under surveillance in Enugu presently and no case of EVD in Enugu State.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs of August 31, 2014, 278 contacts in Lagos State had completed the 21 days surveillance and had been discharged. While in Enugu, all the six identified contacts have completed the 21 day observation period and have been discharged from surveillance. No contact in Port Harcourt has completed the 21 day observation period.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Port Harcourt, Parker also confirmed that an elderly woman who shared the same room with Enemuo when he was admitted at the Good Heart Hospital, tested positive for the EVD.<\/p>\n

The commissioner, who spoke with journalists\u00a0\u00a0 on Monday, said that\u00a0\u00a0 Chinyere, the sister to the late Enemuo, who initially fled to Abia\u00a0\u00a0 had returned to Port Harcourt and had been taken to the Isolation centre in Emohua.<\/p>\n

He said, \u201cI told you yesterday(Sunday) that we had three patients, and out of the three, the result came out; two of them were negative while one was positive. The two negative ones have left the centre.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe discharged them but we will repeat the tests because they are still within the 21 days circle of the virus. We pray that they remain negative.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe one who is positive is an elderly woman that was in the same hospital with the late Dr. Enemuo. In fact, they were in the same room. She is there ( the quarantine centre) now.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Chinyere, he said, \u201cShe had earlier run to Abia State apparently because of fear of being stigmatised.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were able to trace her with the help of my counterpart\u00a0\u00a0 in Abia State. She developed feverish symptoms and she had been admitted at the isolation unit\u00a0\u00a0 for observation and treatment. She is among the 50 high risk contacts on our list. We decided to take her to the isolation unit to make assurance surer.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are currently running a test on her and the result will be out by Tuesday(today) or thereabout. We chose to isolate her because we don\u2019t want to go through the same experience we had with\u00a0\u00a0 Olu-Ibukun.\u201d<\/p>\n

Parker, however, applauded Chinyere\u2019s courage to come out from hiding and added that the major challenge of the state government was that some of the primary and secondary contacts were hiding.<\/p>\n

He also said that Enemuo\u2019s remains and\u00a0\u00a0 others\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 in the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital\u00a0\u00a0 would be buried this week in Port Harcourt.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0\u00a0 commissioner said, \u201cWe have decided that within this week, Dr. Enemuo and other high risk corpses in the UPTH mortuary would be buried, according to the World Health Organisation protocols.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat means that the corpses will not leave Port Harcourt . They will be buried under the supervision of the EOC, Ministry of Health officials, and officials of WHO so that we don\u2019t expose the relatives to danger.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will take care of all the safety protocols ourselves. The families will be there but we will not allow them touch the corpses.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe families can hold their parties if they choose to, but they will not be allowed to come close to the bodies. We will take maximum precaution to combat the spread of the virus.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the three persons taken to the Ebola virus quarantine centre in Oduoha, Emohua Local Government Area of Rivers State, has tested positive for the disease. The latest case, an elderly woman, contracted the virus in Good Heart Hospital, the health facility where Iyke Enemuo, the doctor who treated a Nigerian ECOWAS diplomat, Koye […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1235,"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":[],"class_list":["post-1234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/ebola.jpeg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4oswh-jU","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1234","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=1234"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1234\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1236,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1234\/revisions\/1236"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}