Death toll mounts as Ebola spreads

Lagos/ Monrovia/ Stock holm, Sept. 1: Nigeria’s health minister will hold an emergency meeting of state health commissioners on Monday as West Africa struggles to halt the deadly Ebola virus, amid growing concern at the toll among healthcare workers. Nigeria on Sunday confirmed a fresh case of Ebola in a doctor whose husband died from the virus, adding to a growing list of those providing healthcare in West Africa to be hit by the epidemic.

The woman’s husband was also a doctor who died in the city of Port Harcourt on August 22 after treating a patient who had contact with the Liberian man who brought the virus to Nigeria in late July.

She was in a stable condition at an isolation unit in the financial capital, Lagos, said Sampson Parker, the health commissioner of Rivers State, of which Port Harcourt is the capital. Meanwhile, Liberia’s President ordered most civil servants to stay home another month in an effort to stop the spread of Ebola virus, according to a statement.

President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf ordered non- essential workers not to come to work and promised that all government workers would still be paid. Liberia’s schools are already closed in the effort to keep large numbers of people from gathering and potentially spreading the disease.

Also, a man suspected of being infected with Ebola tested negative in Sweden on Monday, local health officials said.

“We analysed the tests and can say there is no sign whatsoever that the patient was suffering from Ebola,” a statement said.