Health workers in Nigeria “have fought the Ebola outbreak to a tentative standstill.” - New York Times

The Director of the USA Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr Thomas Frieden, was quoted as saying American health workers were watching Nigeria with intense interest, “because of its huge population and because it is much more of a crossroads than the other three countries, in much closer touch with the rest of Africa.”

As the Minister of Health, Professor Onyebuchi Chukwu, announced that the first Nigeria carrier of the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) has fully recovered.

Revealing this at a press briefing at the Yaba Psychiatric Hospital, Lagos, on Saturday, Professor Chukwu confirmed that the statistics of currently confirmed cases of the virus in Nigeria had risen to 12.

The minister said the first Nigerian EVD carrier, the female doctor who attended to Mr Patrick Sawyer, had been freed from the deadly disease.

He added that, “the patients under treatment have now been moved to the new 40-bed capacity isolation ward provided by the Lagos State Government and, at present, five of the confirmed cases of EVD have almost fully recovered.”

Chukwu also disclosed that the experimental drug, Nano Silver, was rejected by the Federal Government because it did not meet the specification of National Health Research Ethic Code.

Speaking on the sack of Resident Doctors, Chukwu said their suspension was temporary.

US expresses worry over Nigeria

Meanwhile, there were growing concerns at the weekend over how Nigeria is handling its share of the problem as the world battles to stop the spread of the virus and save the lives of those who have contracted it.

However, authorities in the United States of America (USA) health sector commended the country and expressed hope that Nigeria stood the best chance of handling the problem, among affected African nations, even as there were indications that the world power is preparing well for victims of the disease in West Africa.

This is coming on the heel of reports of an upsurge in the number of victims of the disease as well as growing fear that it might bring economic hardship to millions of people in the region.

US experts hail Nigeria

According to a report by New York Times, it is believed that health workers in Nigeria “have fought the Ebola outbreak to a tentative standstill.”

American health workers believe that the country is “offering, at least, a chance to eradicate the disease there before it spins out of control, as it has in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, where a sluggish response failed to halt it early.”

The Director of the USA Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr Thomas Frieden, was quoted as saying American health workers were watching Nigeria with intense interest, “because of its huge population and because it is much more of a crossroads than the other three countries, in much closer touch with the rest of Africa.”

Another foreign expert, Dr Maurizio Barbeschi, a scientist from the World Health Organisation (WHO) who is working on the outbreak, was also quoted as saying that though there is panic in Nigeria, the situation is not hopeless for the country.

“They think it is a death sentence,” he said, adding, however, that the people of the country were getting good care and expressing doubt that the country’s death rate would reach that of the other countries, “where about 60 per cent of the cases have been fatal in some locations.”

Source: Tribune