by Chidi Okoye

The Vanguard is reporting that one of the medical personnel who was infected with the Ebola virus by Patrick Sawyer, a Senior Consultant at the First Consultant Hospital, Lagos (name withheld) has recovered, and has been discharged from the isolation centre in Lagos.

The doctor, reported to be a female, was the first person to contract the disease from Sawyer. Her colleagues had launched a campaign to appeal to the United States government to send the experimental Ebola drug, ZMapp, to Nigeria so she could have chances of survival having put her life on the line attending to Sawyer.

It is still unclear what drugs were administered to her and how her recovery came about. However, a source close to the doctor has however said that the Vanguard report is incorrect, she is still in quarantine, and that the family is yet to be contacted about any new development.

Another patient goes into coma

Meanwhile, another one of the eight cases quarantined at the Isolation Unit of the Yaba Mainland Hospital has gone into a coma.

According to a source at the facility, the patient, an unnamed female consultant of the First Consultant Medical Centre, is now in a critical condition.

“She is in a bad shape, her condition really deteriorated today. But the other seven are responding to treatment,” the source said.

The female doctor is one of the 44 people at the First Consultant Medical Centre who had had contact with Patrick Sawyer, the Liberian-American who died of Ebola virus at the hospital. Four people, including the Liberian-American, have died in Lagos since he arrived Nigeria last month.

At a press conference on Friday in Lagos, Jide Idris, the state’s Commissioner for Health, said that in total, there are eleven confirmed Ebola cases (including Sawyer) and one suspect case in Lagos.

“The suspect cases are awaiting the results of confirmatory tests to inform the next line of action,” said Dr. Idris. “Currently, there are eight cases in isolation at the facilities in Mainland Hospital, Yaba. They are all primary contacts of the index case. Two of the confirmed cases – the ECOWAS protocol officer and a nurse – passed on during the week bringing the total number of deaths to four, two of which are health care workers. We commiserate with the families of the victims,” he added.

After initially shutting down the hospital for decontamination following the death of Mr. Sawyer, the Lagos State government on Friday announced that it will be reopened soon, but has not yet given a date for when that will happen.

*This story has been updated