ABUJA, Nigeria – Nigerian health authorities raced to stop the spread of Ebola on Saturday after a man sick with one of the world’s deadliest diseases brought it by plane to Lagos, Africa’s largest city with 21 million people.
Officials in the country of Togo, where the sick man’s flight had a stopover, also went on high alert after learning Ebola possibly could have spread to a fifth country.
Screening people as they enter the country may help slow the spread of the disease, but it is no guarantee Ebola won’t travel by airplane, according to Dr. Lance Plyler, who heads Ebola medical efforts in Liberia for aid organization Samaritan’s Purse.
“Unfortunately, the initial signs of Ebola imitate other diseases, like malaria or typhoid,” he said.
Ebola already had caused about 672 deaths across a wide swath of West Africa before the Nigeria case was announced. It is the deadliest outbreak on record for Ebola, and now it threatens Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation.
Nigerian newspapers describe the effort as a “scramble” to contain the threat after the Liberian arrived in Lagos and then died Friday.
International airports in Nigeria are screening passengers arriving from foreign countries for symptoms of Ebola, according to Yakubu Dati, the spokesman for Federal Aviation Authority of Nigeria.
Doctors say health screens could be effective, but Ebola has a variable incubation period of between two and 21 days and cannot be diagnosed on the spot.
Patrick Sawyer, a consultant for the Liberian Ministry of Finance, arrived in Nigeria on Tuesday and was immediately detained by health authorities suspecting he might have Ebola, Plyler said.
On his way to Lagos, Sawyer’s plane also stopped in Lome, Togo, according to the World Health Organization.
Authorities announced Friday that blood tests from the Lagos University Teaching Hospital confirmed Sawyer died of Ebola earlier that day.
Sawyer reportedly did not show Ebola symptoms when he boarded the plane, Plyler said, but by the time he arrived in Nigeria, he was vomiting and had diarrhea. There has not been another recently recorded case of Ebola spreading through air travel, he added.
Nearly 50 other passengers on the flight are being monitored for signs of Ebola but are not being kept in isolation, said an employee at Nigeria’s Ministry of Health.
Sawyer’s sister also died of Ebola in Liberia, according to Liberian officials, but he claimed to have had no contact with her. Ebola is highly contagious and kills more than 70 percent of people infected.
An outbreak in Lagos, Africa’s mega-city where many live in cramped conditions, could be an unprecedented disaster in what is already the largest Ebola outbreak on record.
Ebola is passed by touching bodily fluids of patients even after they die, said Plan International’s Disaster Response and Preparedness Head, Dr. Unni Krishnan. Traditional burials that include rubbing the bodies of the dead contribute to the spread of the disease, Krishnan added.
There is no “magic bullet” cure for Ebola, but early detection and treatment of fluids and nutrition can be effective, said Plyler in Liberia. Quickly isolating patients who show symptoms is also crucial in slowing the spread of the disease.
