400 people have been placed under surveillance in Rivers State, The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control Project Director, Dr. Abdulsalami Nasidi, has said.
According to him, the health ministry is currently monitoring about 400 people in Port Harcourt, for signs of the disease after they came in contact with the Port Harcourt doctor who secretly treated the diplomat who had contracted Ebola in a Port Harcourt hotel.
The doctor, who died on the 22nd of August, 2014 exposed his wife (who has now tested positive) and many others, including his doctor friends who treated him when he fell ill, by not telling them he had been exposed to the deadly virus.
“Everything about this doctor was in secrecy; he violated our public health laws by treating a patient with a highly pathogenic agent who revealed to him that he had contact with Ebola and didn’t want to be treated in Lagos because he might be put in isolation.
“He treated him in secrecy outside hospital premises. When he became ill he did not reveal to his colleagues that he had contact with someone who contracted Ebola. He was taken to General Hospital, a private hospital that sees everybody.
“That is the only case that effectively escaped our surveillance network. We are paying now for it,” Dr. Abdulsalami Nasidi said.
