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Nigeria confirms new Ebola case

August 11, 2014

Nigeria has confirmed a new case of Ebola in its financial capital, Lagos. Senegal and Rwanda have each announced their first suspected cases, as nations take measures to halt the spread of the deadly virus.

https://p.dw.com/p/1CsQI
Doctors Without Borders nurse Lucie Perardel checks her goggles as part of the personal protective equipment used by the staff when they go into the area with patients who are either suspected or confirmed as having Ebola, in Guinea, May 06, 2014. Photo: Sam Taylor/ Doctors without Borders
Image: Cellou Binani/AFP/Getty Images

Nigeria on Monday confirmed its 10th case of Ebola in its largest city and financial capital, Lagos.

Health minister Onyebuchi Chukwu said the latest confirmed case was a female nurse involved in the care of a Liberian-American man who died of Ebola in a Lagos hospital on July 25.

Only one other infected person who, like all the other cases, had contact with the man, has died so far.

Nigeria has banned the transport of corpses across national and state borders as it tries to help stem the outbreak of the deadly disease, which has killed almost 1,000 people across West Africa. This means that Nigerians who die of Ebola in other African countries will have to be buried in the community where their death occurs.

More suspected cases

In a possible sign that the disease is spreading further, two suspected first cases of Ebola were announced on Monday in Rwanda and Senegal.

In Rwanda, the health ministry said it had placed a German student with Ebola-like symptoms in isolation in a hospital in the capital, Kigali. It said the student had recently spent time in Liberia, where the disease has killed 294 people.

Senegal said a 27-year-old Malian had fallen sick with suspected Ebola in the north of the country.

In another move aimed at curbing the outbreak, Ivory Coast on Monday announced it had banned all flights from countries hit by Ebola "until further notice." No case of Ebola has yet surfaced in the country.

Untested drug

Meanwhile, the Spanish health ministry said on Monday that it had imported a US-made experimental drug, called ZMapp, to use in treating the 75-year-old missionary priest Miguel Pajares, who contracted the disease in Liberia and was flown to hospital in Madrid.

The drug has been used to treat, with apparent success, two Americans diagnosed with Ebola in Liberia who were evacuated back to the United States. ZMapp has never been tested in humans.

Ebola causes flu-like symptoms including fever. In the worst cases, it causes unstoppable bleeding. The disease spreads by contact with bodily fluids, including sweat, and there is no known treatment or vaccine.

tj/kms (dpa, AFP, AP, Reuters)