Infected diplomat takes Ebola to Port Harcourt

Nigeria’s efforts to contain the deadly Ebola   virus have suffered a major setback   with the news that another medical doctor has been killed by the disease in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.

The news   was announced by the Minister of Health, Prof Onyebuchi Chukwu, at a news conference in Abuja on Thursday.

The doctor’s passage on Friday, the first outside Lagos, caused panic in Rivers State and worry among health personnel and other stakeholders battling to stamp out the disease in the country.



Although Chukwu did not give the identity of the doctor, the Rivers State Government   said he is   Iyke Enemuo.

Enemuo was said to have contracted the virus from an Economic Community of West African States diplomat while allegedly treating him of Ebola symptoms in a hotel in Port Harcourt.

It was gathered that Enemuo, before he took ill on Tuesday “operated on a woman on Monday presumably after treating the diplomat.”

A resident of the city said on her Facebook page   that   the doctor’s widow, who was quarantined alongside the diplomat, had a three-month-old baby.

The ECOWAS official whose name was also not given by Chukwu, was said to have had contact with the index case in Nigeria (Patrick Sawyer). He was placed under surveillance in Lagos but he escaped to Port Harcourt   where he checked into a hotel and contacted Enemuo for treatment.

Click here to continue to read