NIGERIA has been declared Ebola free with no new cases were reported in the last six weeks.
In an extraordinary victory Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa, with 160 million people — had just 20 cases, including eight deaths, a lower death rate than the 70 per cent seen elsewhere across the stricken region.
How its success came at the cost of the hospital consultant who moved swiftly to isolate the first patient she suspected, rightly, of having the virus.
Dr Stella Ameyo Adadevoh hospitalised Patrick Sawyer, a Liberian-American diplomat against his will after he collapsed at Lagos airport and she immediately raised the alarm, so public health workers could trace and isolate all the people he had been in contact with.
As a result, the numbers of those infected were kept to a minimum. However, sadly they included Dr Adadevoh who succumbed to the virus.
Nigeria’s containment of Ebola is a “spectacular success story,” said Rui Gama Vaz, WHO director for Nigeria after the organisation officially declared the country Ebola free.
Survivor Dr. Adaora Igonoh said the treatment put into place for patients involved drinking, as she did, at least five litres of a solution of water, sugar and salt every day for five or six days.
“You don’t want to drink anything. You’re too weak, and with the sore throat it’s difficult to swallow, but you know when you have just vomited, you need it,” she said. “I had to mentally tell myself, ‘You have got to drink this fluid, whether it tastes nice or not.”’
Some 9,000 people have been infected with Ebola in West Africa, and about 4,500 have died, mostly in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia, with the number of cases expected to increase exponentially in the coming weeks.
Dr. Simon Mardel, one of the world’s leading experts on viral haemorrhagic fevers, said the number of deaths could be cut in half if infected people were taught to properly hydrate themselves and do not take anti-inflammatory drugs, which can actually harm Ebola victims.
Meanwhile, about 120 people in the US are being monitored for symptoms because they may have had contact with one of Dallas’ three Ebola victims. More than 40 others have been given the all-clear after the 21-day maximum incubation period for the virus ended.
The European Union has stepped up efforts to raise nearly $1.3 billion to combat the outbreak.
President Barack Obama is working the phones with world leaders, appealing to them to join the fight.
WHO director Margaret Chan said that an internal WHO report that said the UN agency bungled efforts to control the outbreak was “a work in progress,” and “the facts have not been fully checked.”
Dr Mardel, of Britain’s University Hospital of South Manchester, called rehydration a low-tech approach that has been neglected by a medical system focused on groundbreaking research.
When Nigeria’s outbreak began in Lagos, many feared the worst in the city of 21 million people, many of whom live in with large numbers of people living in crowded and unsanitary conditions in slums.a
“The last thing anyone in the world wants to hear is the two words, ‘Ebola’ and ‘Lagos,’ in the same sentence,” US consul general Jeffrey Hawkins noted at the time, saying the development raised the spectre of an “apocalyptic urban outbreak.”
Instead, with swift coordination among state and federal health officials, the WHO and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and with ample financial and material resources from Nigeria’s government, isolation wards were constructed and Ebola treatment centres designated.
Health workers tracked down nearly 100 per cent of those who had contact with the infected, paying 18,500 visits to 894 people.
The eight deaths included two doctors and a nurse.
Monday’s announcement came 42 days — twice the incubation period — since the last case in Nigeria tested negative.
“The outbreak in Nigeria has been contained,” WHO’s Dr Vaz said. “But we must be clear that we only won a battle. The war will only end when West Africa is also declared free of Ebola.”
Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan said the success shows what Nigerians can achieve when they set aside their differences. He urged his people to replicate “the unity of purpose and all-hands-on-deck approach” in other areas of national life.
There is no licensed treatment for Ebola, so doctors focus on hydration and supportive care, even in developed countries. In some cases, doctors have been surprised that keeping patients hydrated has been enough to save them.
To improve survival rates, Dr Mardel said, it is time to designate packaged rehydration solutions as part of the cure. He said more needs to be done to make the fluids palatable, such as making the solutions weaker or flavouring them.
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