– A Liberian man suspected to have Ebola virus has died in quarantine in Lagos, Nigeria, a Nigerian official in Geneva said on Friday.
The man, who collapsed on arrival at the airport in Nigeria’s commercial center, Lagos, on Thursday, was being kept in isolation by authorities and had not entered the mega-city of 21 million people, he said.
“While he was in quarantine he passed away,” the official said.
Ebola has killed 660 people across Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone since it was first diagnosed in the region in February, straining their impoverished healthcare systems.
If confirmed, the case would be the first on record of one of the world’s deadliest diseases in Nigeria, Africa’s biggest economy and, with 170 million people, its most populous country.
The special adviser on public health to the Lagos state government, Yewande Adeshina, told a news conference the man, who is in his 40s, arrived at Lagos airport from Liberia on Sunday. He was rushed to hospital and put in an isolation ward, she said.
“The patient was admitted and detained on suspicion of possible EBV (Ebola virus) infection, while blood sample collection and testing was initiated,” she said. The test results were pending, she said.
A spokesman for the World Health Organisation (WHO) in Geneva confirmed one suspected case of Ebola in Nigeria and said samples had been sent to a WHO lab for testing.
Adeshina said Lagos state authorities had requested the flight’s manifest to contact the other passengers. They would also trace the man’s travel route and had already distributed protective clothing to health workers, she said.
Ben Neuman, a virologist and Ebola expert at Britain’s University of Reading, said it was important to note that Ebola is one of a number of viruses that can cause haemorrhagic fever, and that others, including Lassa fever virus and Dengue virus, could turn out to be the diagnosis in this case.
“Some of these other, more common haemorrhagic fever viruses have already been the cause of false alarms in the ongoing west African Ebola outbreak,” Neuman told Reuters in London, urging calm.