Ebola: Patrick Sawyer Escaped Quarantine

Liberian President, 

It has been revealed that the Liberian, Mr. Patrick Sawyer, who travelled to Lagos from Monrovia and became Nigeria’s index case for the Ebola virus was actually under surveillance by the Liberian health authorities, even though he still managed to board a flight to travel.

The Minister of State II for Foreign Affairs, Dr. Nurudeen Mohammed, said this while relaying a conversation between Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Nigeria’s Ambassador to Liberia, Ambassador Chigozie Oby-Nadozie.

According to Mohammed, President Sirleaf, in a telephone conversation with Oby-Nadozie, had expressed regrets at the circumstances under which the virus was brought to Nigeria by Sawyer who was under surveillance.

There have been reports that Sawyer's sister had died of the virus.
Mohammed, at a briefing for members of the diplomatic corps in Abuja yesterday on the Ebola virus, however, noted that this was not a time for trading blame, but for collaboration to combat and stop the spread of the deadly epidemic, which has now killed over 900 persons, according to figures from the World Health Organisation (WHO).

Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Vice-President, Dr. Toga Mcintosh, confirmed that Sawyer escaped from quarantine in Liberia to fly to Nigeria.

Speaking with journalists at the end of the briefing, Mcintosh said: “Because he had contact with somebody who died from Ebola, he was quarantined in his own country but he evaded the quarantine and came to Nigeria.”

Outbound Passengers for Screening

Also speaking at the briefing, the Minister of Health, Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu, said health authorities would commence the screening of all outbound passengers from Nigeria's shores.

Passengers who show symptoms would be prevented from travelling and where they are non-Nigerians, they would only be allowed out if their countries have the capacity for a properly supervised evacuation and treatment as was demonstrated by the US recently, he explained.

According to Chukwu,  “In Nigeria, we have not closed our borders. The Minister of Health will be the person to advise the president to close the borders. If there is any superior argument, then we can shift.

“For now, we are taking the advice of the US government that it may be useful if we begin screening outbound passengers, and we have adopted it. We are screening now. We are going to get more personnel.” He also called on the diplomats present to ask their countries to assist Nigeria as it fights to curtail the spread of the virus, saying: “Wherever your countries can assist us, if useful, particularly your airlines flying to Nigeria. We want to screen citizens and non-citizens, if they have it please let them stay in Nigeria; we will treat you here. Even if you are our ambassadors, we want to treat you here.

“We have begun to screen all outbound passengers. We don't want them to go to other countries and cause trouble there. Except your country has what it takes, we want to keep you and treat you here, so that we contain this disease. We must insist that before passengers leave, they must be screened.”

He added that the spread of the virus was not yet critical in Nigeria, saying that the spread was “exponential”.
Chukwu also explained that more medical personnel were being recruited and would be entitled to life insurance, stressing that all those recruited whether from the federal civil service, state or private health institutions would be entitled to life insurance.
This, he added, is to ensure that the families of the caregivers are adequately taken care of in the event of death.

Handshaking Should be Limited

As a precautionary measure, the minister said people should shake hands only when necessary.
“We are not saying people should not shake hands, but we are saying that if it is not necessary, don't do so," Chukwu said.

On pilgrimage, the minister urged hajj teams to have a medical team. He said the government was already working with the Saudi authorities to ensure that all pilgrims are screened and in turn, all Saudi nationals visiting Nigeria would be screened without any obstruction to religious obligations.

He cautioned that the new trend where some persons choose to wear gloves was “counterproductive” as they would accumulate the virus and may even take it to their homes.“The practice of wearing gloves by members of the public would only be effective if all 170 million Nigerians do so,” he said.

He however harped on the necessity of all health workers and airport officials to put on masks and disposable gloves before touching patients and passengers. The minister gave a breakdown of the spread of the virus, stating that the number of confirmed cases still stood at seven, describing the disease as “viral terrorism”.

Source: Thisday