The death toll from the Ebola outbreak in west Africa has risen to 932, the World Health Organisation said yesterday.
The new figures come as authorities in Nigeria confirmed the death of a nurse from the disease. Saudi Arabia also announced one fatality from Ebola-like symptoms.
The outbreak emerged in March in Guinea and shows no sign of slowing down. Most of the new deaths are coming from Liberia and Sierra Leone.
There now have been 363 fatalities in Guinea, 282 in Liberia, 286 in Sierra Leone and one confirmed death in Nigeria, according to WHO’s statistics as of August 4.
With the nurse’s death in Nigeria the country has five additional confirmed cases of the disease.
Health Minister Onyebuchi Chukwu said yesterday that all the Ebola cases are being treated in isolation in Lagos, sub-Saharan Africa’s largest city with 21 million people.
He said the nurse had treated the man who travelled from Liberia and died of Ebola in Lagos last month.
The five other confirmed cases are believed to be health workers who treated Liberian-American Patrick Sawyer, who was sick when he flew into Lagos and died days later on July 25.
We are recruiting additional health personnel to strengthen the team
Authorities are now following up with others who had contact with Sawyer to see if they are showing Ebola symptoms.
Chukwu said officials are setting up an emergency centre to deal with Ebola, which will be “fully functional” tomorrow.
“We are embarking on recruiting additional health personnel to strengthen the team who are currently managing the situation in Lagos,” he said. Special tents would be used to speed up the establishment of isolation wards in all of Nigeria’s states.
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia’s Health Ministry says a man who was being tested for Ebola and was in critical condition in an isolation ward has died.
The Health Ministry says the Saudi man died yesterday in a hospital in Jiddah.
He was hospitalised after showing symptoms of a viral hemorrhagic fever following a recent trip to Sierra Leone, where there has been an outbreak of Ebola.
The ministry says it has submitted samples to an international reference lab to test for Ebola on the advice of the World Health Organisation.
It says the 40-year-old Saudi man had tested negative for dengue fever.