Mr. Patrick Sawyer, a WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) consultant at the Ministry of Finance, who had been quarantined since falling ill after arriving in Lagos, Nigeria, for a conference last Sunday, has died, FrontPageAfrica reported.A Liberian government official, speaking on condition of anonymity said the news of Sawyer’s death was relayed to Liberia by the Nigerian embassy, early Friday morning.
Nigerian government health authorities announced Thursday that Sawyer, 40 was being tested for the deadly Ebola virus in Nigeria’s commercial capital of Lagos, a megacity of 21 million people.Sawyer’s death is the first recorded case of one of the world’s deadliest diseases in Nigeria.Ebola has killed 632 people across Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone since an outbreak began in February, straining a string of weak health systems despite i international help. The virus — which starts off with flu-like symptoms and often ends with horrific hemorrhaging — has infected about 1,048 people and killed an estimated 632 since this winter, according to the numbers on July 17 from the World Health Organization.
Ebola is both rare and very deadly. Since the first outbreak in 1976, Ebola viruses have infected thousands of people and killed about one-third of them. Symptoms can come on very quickly and kill fast: