Ebola jumps to the oil capital of Nigeria with 60 cases at risk

The Ebola epidemic that spans West Africa does at a rate hitherto unknown. Only in the last week there have been 400 deaths and the overall death toll has now risen to 1,900 from a total of 3,500 infections, as reported by the Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Margaret Chan. The feeling that exists on the ground is that it is trying to contain the fire unsuccessfully new outbreaks occur constantly. The last of them and one of the greatest concern at this time has appeared in Port Harcourt, a Nigerian city of a million and a half inhabitants and oil capital of the country, where, after the death of a doctor and contagion confirmed two others people, has been put under surveillance to 200, of which 60 are at high risk of being infected.




It happened on 1 August. For two days, Dr. Samuel Enemuo Iyke Koye treated in a hotel until the officer felt better and returned to Lagos. Once there they did the tests and tested negative, so everyone thought his irresponsible act would not have major consequences. But they were wrong. The official ECOWAS itself was infected and therefore was contagious to others. On 11 August, Enemuo started feeling fever and pain, but continued to work and seeing patients in his private clinic. In fact, he came to perform some surgery until symptoms worsened and stopped working. On August 16 he entered the hospital and died on 22.

The government is considering accused of killing a patient who escaped from hospital
However, while he was sick Enemuo maintained close contact with at least 200 people. Not only his family, patients or staff at her clinic and the hospital where he was admitted, but friends who went to a house party to celebrate the birth of his son and fellow religious congregation who came to the hospital for him a healing ceremony of laying on of hands. The Government has announced that his wife and one patient in the same hospital have tested positive for Ebola, but the rest have been placed in daily monitoring. Of these, 60 are considered high risk.

Due to the large number of contacts, the WHO says the outbreak of Port Harcourt "has the potential to spread further and faster than that of Lagos." Therefore, the Nigerian government has already provided an isolation for up to 26 people and the WHO itself has deployed a team of 15 specialists. This is a serious setback for the Nigerian authorities who last week had shown moderate optimism about containing the outbreak in this country. With these new cases, the number of people infected in Nigeria rises to 18.

Eight two experimental treatments and vaccines 

Some 200 experts are meeting this Thursday and Friday convened at the request of the World Health Organization (WHO) to discuss the prospects for the use and production of eight treatments and two vaccines, all experimental, not sufficiently tested and at different stages test against Ebola virus. This meeting is to inform the authorities of the affected countries of the existence of such products and facilitate contacts between governments and manufacturers.
WHO has clarified in a document that "none of these treatments has been clinically proven" and that even "with the exceptional measures that have been put in place to accelerate the pace of clinical trials, new treatments and vaccines may not be available for widespread use by the end of 2014. "
Among experts convened by WHO are policy makers in countries affected by Ebola, ethics specialists, doctors, researchers, jurists and representatives of patients. Since last August, a committee of the WHO concluded that, given the virulence of the current epidemic of Ebola and under certain conditions, was consistent with the ethical use of certain products being tested.
Among the treatments cited, including made ​​from the blood of patients who have survived, immunotherapies, drugs and vaccines, is the ZMapp, a serum that has been used for patients in the current epidemic with mixed results: for the seven people who have received five have survived (the two American missionaries, two doctors in Liberia and the British nurse William Pooley) and two have died (the Spanish religious Miguel Pajares and Liberian physician Abraham Borbor).