This was made known on Tuesday in a statement issued by Tom Frieden, Director of United States’ Center for Disease Control and Prevention, a copy obtained by Vanguard.
He disclosed that the man who imported Ebola into US was discovered to have travelled to Liberia without informing the United States authorities and did not disclose the nature of his ailment to the nurse that attended to him, who is now also diagnosed Ebola.
The Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, where a patient is showing signs of the Ebola virus.
The Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, where a patient is showing signs of the Ebola virus.
According to him, the crisis is under control and the public has nothing to fear. He said it is clear the nation needs a quick and thorough response to its first Ebola patient, adding that although Nigeria was not completely out of the woods, its extensive response to a single case of Ebola shows that control is possible with rapid, focused interventions.
Frieden, who also revealed that apart from Nigeria, the US will also visit Senegal to study its model said: “the best practices in Nigeria and Senegal suggest the U.S. should monitor all individuals who may have been exposed to Ebola and establish a dedicated management and response system.”
The health official further stated that the U.S officials expected in Nigeria are experts in the handling and combating of Ebola Virus disease.
Speaking on how Nigeria was able to successfully stop the killer disease, Frieden said: “Nigeria’s first reported case of Ebola surfaced July 20, when Patrick Sawyer landed in Lagos from Liberia and exposed 72 other passengers to the virus. Nigeria’s Health officials quickly issued notifications and tracked everybody who may have been in contact with Sawyer.
“Nigeria also established an Ebola Incident Management Center to handle the potential outbreak and developed a staffing plan that executed a social mobilization strategy that reached more than 26,000 households of people living around the contacts of Ebola patients.”
On Senegal, the first confirmed case of Ebola was on August 29, 2014, after a man, travelling from Guinea on August 14, fell ill and later showed symptoms of the disease. The development prompted a quick response, which led to the identification of 67 contacts that were placed under quarantine, and monitored for 21 days but showed no symptoms of the deadly disease.
Meanwhile, the Federal Government is expected to officially announce today (Wednesday) that the remaining two potential Ebola patients will be released since the 21-day observation period. Nigeria has not reported any new case of the deadly Ebola virus since August 31, while Senegal has also not recorded any new case of Ebola since September 18, 2014.
It was reported by the World Health Organisation, WHO, that the killer virus has claimed the lives of more than 3,000 people in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia in the largest outbreak ever seen.
It would be recalled that the killer virus was imported into Nigeria by the late American- Liberian, Patrick Sawyer whose index case was reported on July 20, 2014.
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