Nigerian authorities say they have confirmed a second case of Ebola in Africa's most populous country, an alarming development after a man who flew by plane to the country died of Ebola.
Nigerian Health Minister Onyebuchi Chukwu said Monday that the second person with Ebola is a doctor who had helped treat Patrick Sawyer, the Liberian-American man who died of Ebola in late July.
Sawyer, who was traveling to Nigeria on business, became ill while aboard a flight and Nigerian authorities immediately took him into isolation. They did not quarantine his fellow passengers, and have insisted that the risk of additional cases was minimal.
Nigeria is the fourth country to report Ebola cases and more than 700 people have died in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.
Cremation ordered for Liberian victims
Meanwhile, the Liberian government is ordering that all corpses of Ebola victims must be cremated as fears rise that the disease could be spread by bodies being buried in residential areas.
Information Minister Lewis Brown announced Monday on state radio that authorities now will cremate the remains of Ebola victims.
The order comes after a tense standoff erupted over the weekend when health workers tried to bury more than 20 Ebola victims on the outskirts of Monrovia.
Authorities said military police officers were called in to help restore order so that the burials could take place.
West Africa is experiencing the largest recorded Ebola outbreak in history, with at least 729 deaths blamed on the disease. Many contracted the disease by touching the bodies of victims as is tradition at funerals.
CBC
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