Deadly Ebola Virus Hits Port Harcourt, Claims First Victim, Health Minister Confirms

Nigeria on Thursday said that a doctor had died from Ebola in the southeastern oil city of Port Harcourt in the first case of the deadly virus outside the financial hub, Lagos.

Health minister Onyebuchi Chukwu said the medic died on August 22 after treating a patient who had contact with a Liberian-American man, who brought the virus into Nigeria and died in a Lagos hospital on July 25.

“Following the report of this death by the doctor’s widow the next day, the case had been thoroughly investigated and laboratory analysis showed that this doctor died from EVD (Ebola Virus Disease),” he told reporters in Abuja.