TheCable

Exactly a day after the minister of health disclosed that there was no any case of Ebola in Nigeria, a suspected Ebola carrier was arrested at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos, according to Reuters.

The victim, a South African based in Cape Town, had reportedly visited Guinea and Sierra Leone, two countries presently battling the scourge of the highly-contagious virus.

Her health questionnaire had revealed that she was suffering from diarrhoea and vomiting – symptoms of the Ebola hemorrhagic virus.

“This person has been in Guinea and Sierra Leone since April … she has symptoms,” Dr. Morenike Alex-Okoh, director of Port Health Services at Lagos airport, said.

Relevant health officials are said to have taken her to the Ebola treatment centre in Lagos for tests in order to confirm whether she actually has the virus.

Nigeria recorded its first case of Ebola in a similar manner, as Patrick Sawyer, a Liberian-American, fell ill upon arriving the country from Liberia on July 20.

TheCable could not immediately independently ascertain the report, as Yakubu Datti, spokesman of the Nigeria Airspace Management Agency (NAMA), said other authorities at the airport were in the best position to discuss the matter.

However, minister of health, professor Onyebuchi Chukwu, subsequently confirmed that “a South African national suspected of showing symptoms of Ebola at the international airport was quarantined at the isolation ward in Lagos while her case is being investigated”.