July 27, 2014 – Mr. Patrick Sawyer, a Liberian afflicted with Ebola Virus Disease(EVD) who died in Lagos on Thursday has been cremated in Lagos, South West Nigeria.
The event was witnessed by officials of the Lagos State Ministry of Health and the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, NCDC, led by its Project Director, Professor Abdulsalam Nasidi, among others.
We gathered that cremation was the best option to avoid further spread of the EVD. Sawyer was cremated even as Health Officials in Nigeria have continued to trail the over 100 passengers that accompanied the Liberian to an ECOWAS conference in Nigeria.
The Ministry Health, Lagos State is scheduled to brief the press tomorrow Monday on the development.
Sawyer was said to have been dropped in Lagos when he collapsed aboard the plane on his way to Calabar and later died at a specialist hospital in Obalende, Lagos.
Commissioner for Health, Lagos State Mr. Jide idris told reporters in Lagos on Friday that government has obtained manifest of co-travelers with the Liberian and that they are currently on the trail of the passengers but that they will not be quarantined.
He said that the hospital where the patient died is being sanitized, adding that a patient afflicted with EVD dies within 20 days and that the viral disease is contracted mainly through body fluid and called on Nigerians to imbibe the habit of hand washing.
