Nigeria quarantines hospital over Ebola

Nigeria has closed and quarantined a hospital where a Liberian man recently died of Ebola in Lagos in an effort to prevent the spread of the disease.

Patrick Sawyer, a Liberian national, had been put in isolation at the First Consultants Hospital before dying on Friday.

“The private hospital was demobilized [evacuated] and the primary source of infection eliminated. The decontamination process in all the affected areas has commenced,” Lagos state Health Commissioner Jide Idris told a news conference on Monday.

Nigeria’s largest airline, Arik Air, suspended all flights to Liberia and Sierra Leone after Sawyer’s case.

The Ebola virus has killed 672 people in West Africa since February. Guinea is the worst-hit country, with 319 deaths as of July 23. Liberia has reported 129 deaths, while 224 have lost their lives in Sierra Leone.

There is currently no known cure for Ebola, a form of hemorrhagic fever whose symptoms are diarrhea, vomiting and bleeding. The virus spreads through direct contact with infected blood, feces or sweat. It can also be spread through sexual contact or the unprotected handling of contaminated corpses.

Ebola was first discovered in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1976 in an outbreak that killed 280 people. It remains one of the world’s most virulent diseases, which kills between 25 to 90 percent of those who fall sick.