Abuja Ebola suspect tests negative
Result of a test conducted on the suspected Ebola patient in Asokoro General Hospital, Abuja, has shown that the patient did not die of the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD). The Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) revealed on Tuesday.
Speaking with The Nigerian Times, the Head, Public Relations Unit of the Health and Human Services Secretariat (HHSS) of the FCTA, Badaru Salisu Yakasai confirmed that the result eventually emerged late Monday night and indicated that the suspect was negative as his death resulted from a different ailment.
He advised residents not to panic as the FCT Administration is well equipped to combat any possible outbreak in the Territory.
Earlier on Monday, at the 2nd Emergency National Council on Health Meeting on the Ebola Virus Disease Outbreak in Nigeria held in Abuja, the Minister of Health, Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu had debunked the claims of the presence of the virus in the Federal Capital Territory as suspected by the FCTA.
He had insisted that the patient in question who had collapsed in a hotel and evacuated to the hospital where he later died was not an Ebola patient.
“The case of the Abuja hotel has been investigated and proven that it was not a case of the EVD,” the minister of health had said, adding that the said person was not a Liberian but a Nigerian working with the USAID.
Notwithstanding, the Health Secretariat went ahead to release the statement announcing the suspected case.
It however, advised the general public not to panic as the case of Ebola has not been confirmed at the Hospital and the measures that have been put in place are only precautionary in the interest of public safety.
Yakasai had in a press statement on Monday confirmed the suspected Ebola case in the hospital, saying a test being conducted on the patient will either prove or dispel the suspicion.
