TVC N. The Ebola scare going round in Nigeria following the corpse flown in from Kenya has gone down as the autopsy report shows negative. The body of a deceased man was flown into the through the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Lagos, from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) by Kenya Airways on Monday.
Confirming this wednesday, the Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole, said that a test was carried out and had tested negative for the virus, but he refused to divulge the cause of the deceased’s death, citing medical confidentiality.
It was learnt on Tuesday that the corpse of a young man was flown in onboard a Kenya Airways flight and quarantined by the Port Health Services (PHS) to ascertain if the death of the deceased was caused by the Ebola virus, since the DRC is currently facing another outbreak of the deadly haemorrhagic fever.
In order not to cause panic in the country, Prof. Adewole was immediately contacted to ascertain if the dead person might have died as a result of the Ebola virus.
The minister on Tuesday confirmed that his ministry was aware of the body, which had been moved to the University of Lagos Teaching Hospital (LUTH) for immediate tests.
This was prompted by the knowledge that the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) protocols do not allow the handover of dead bodies infected with the Ebola disease to relatives of the deceased for burial, much less allowing such corpses to be flown across borders by an airline. Such bodies are meant to be incinerated by qualified medical personnel after death has been confirmed.
When contacted again yesterday, Adewole said the body had tested negative for the Ebola disease.
