We’ve traced 53 Ebola contacts, will pay each N100,000 weekly – NCDC

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, NCDC, traced 53 people who had contact with an Ebola patient in the Federal Capital Territory, FCT.

DAILY POST reports that the index case is a 42-year-old woman, the wife of a Swiss Embassy staff member, who returned from Uganda through Addis Ababa on October 3 and developed fever, diarrhoea and body pains on October 7.

Addressing journalists on Sunday, the NCDC Director-General, Dr Jide Idris, said the 53 primary contacts included 47 health workers from the hospital where the patient was treated and six other people.

Idris listed the other contacts as the patient’s husband, driver, chef and three health workers who attended to her in the emergency room.

According to him, the agency would pay each person in quarantine N100,000 per week after they complained that they could not run their businesses.

“We have traced 53 Ebola contacts. We are providing N100,000 to each person per week just to maintain their comfort and feeding, because they were complaining,” Idris said.

The NCDC director-general further stated that the contacts would be monitored for 21 days, while contact tracers would also track secondary contacts.

Meanwhile, a suspected Ebola case in Rivers State tested negative.

Idris said the index patient’s condition had improved remarkably following an earlier report of multiple-organ failure.