Fears of a global Ebola pandemic are ‘justified’ an expert has said as Nigerian health officials try to trace 30,000 people at risk of contracting the deadly disease following the death of Patrick Sawyer.
The U.S. citizen boarded a flight in Liberia carrying the disease to Nigeria, potentially infecting ‘anyone on the same plane’.
It comes as Nigerian actor Jim Iyke sparked outrage, posting a picture of himself wearing an Ebola mask while sitting in a first class airport lounge as he fled Liberia.
The ‘Nollywood’ star posted a message on his Instagram page saying he had cut short a business trip to Monrovia in Liberia – where at least 600 people have already died from the disease.
The death toll for this, the worst outbreak recorded since the Ebola virus was discovered in 1976, stands at 672, while more than 1,200 people have been infected.
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The latest outbreak of Ebola is the most severe since the disease was discovered in 1976. So far the disease has spread from a village in Guinea to Sierra Leone, Liberia and Nigeria
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Nigerian health officials are in the process of trying to trace 30,000 people, believed to be at risk of contracting the highly-infectious virus, following the death of Patrick Sawyer in Lagos
Ebola (above) has already killed 672 people in Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria and infected more than 1,200 since it was first diagnosed in February. Symptoms include sudden fever, vomiting and headaches
Medical personnel at the Doctors Without Borders facility in Kailahun, Sierra Leone, where leading Ebola doctor Sheik Humarr Khan died
The disease has swept through Western Africa, having first been detected in Guinea in February.
Since then victims have succumbed to the incurable illness, which starts with flu-like symptoms before evolving to cause catastrophic internal bleeding, in Sierra Leone and Liberia.
But it was the death of a U.S. citizen in the Nigerian captial of Lagos on Friday, that has prompted fears the disease could be on the brink of spreading to the West, as experts warn it could be carried across international borders by air travellers.
Mr Sawyer, a consultant for Liberia’s Finance Ministry, died on Friday after arriving at Lagos airport on June 20, having vomited and suffered diarrhoea on two flights.
The 40-year-old U.S. citizen had been to the funeral of his sister, who also died from the disease.
A woman quarantined at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Hong Kong has tested negative for the disease, despite returning from a trip to Kenya with Ebola-like symptoms.
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