Nigeria completes monitoring of 62 Ebola contacts
By the AFREEQUE newsroom, based on Sowetan
Nigeria has completed the 21-day monitoring of 62 contacts linked to the imported Ebola case, with no new infections, according to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention. Thirteen symptomatic people tested negative and seven alerts were also ruled out, Reuters reports.
Nigeria completed on Friday 13 November the 21-day surveillance period for the 62 people who had contact with the confirmed Ebola case in the country, with none developing the disease, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDC) announced. Thirteen contacts had developed fever or other non-specific symptoms, but all their tests for the virus were negative.
The NCDC also said that seven Ebola alerts reported in five Nigerian states over the past three weeks had been investigated and that all seven tests were negative. The last contact under monitoring was released on Friday, according to the agency.
The end of monitoring of the 62 contacts does not, however, mean that the outbreak has officially ended. According to World Health Organisation protocols, Nigeria must complete a 42-day countdown from the recovery or departure of the last confirmed patient before it can officially declare the end of the outbreak.
The confirmed case involved a Swiss woman who arrived in Nigeria after travelling to Uganda. She and her husband were evacuated to Switzerland, where she made a full recovery and was discharged from hospital, Reuters reports. The recovery was announced on 13 November in Nigeria’s Ebola index patient recovers in Switzerland.
