The Ebola victim who sparked fears that a historic outbreak of the disease could spread globally was an American citizen, Daily Mail of UK reports. Patrick Sawyer died this week after becoming noticeably ill on a flight from Liberia in West Africa, where the worst ever outbreak of Ebola is gathering pace, to the city of Lagos in Nigeria. His case sparked alarm across the globe because he was able to board an international flight while carrying the incurable disease – potentially infecting other passengers who could fly across the world in a nightmare scenario for health experts.
Patrick Sawyer, 40, was due to return home to Coon Rapids, Minnesota, in August. But his death in Lagos, Africa’s most populous city, has health workers scrambling to trace those who may have been exposed to him across West Africa, including flight attendants and fellow passengers.
American Ebola victim is terrified, say his colleagues as they tell how he dedicated his life to Africa and refused to flee with his young family when virus began to spread
His devastated wife, Decontee Sawyer, 34, shudders when she thinks how close Sawyer came to returning home to the States for his daughters’ birthdays carrying the dreaded virus.
The risk of travelers contracting Ebola is considered low because it requires direct contact with bodily fluids or secretions such as urine, blood, sweat or saliva, experts say. Ebola can’t be spread like flu through casual contact or breathing in the same air.
Patients are contagious only once the disease has progressed to the point they show symptoms, according to the WHO. And the most vulnerable are health care workers and relatives who come in much closer contact with the sick.
Still, witnesses say Sawyer, a 40-year-old Liberian Finance Ministry employee en route to a conference in Nigeria, was vomiting and had diarrhea aboard at least one of his flights with some 50 other passengers aboard. Ebola can be contracted from traces of feces or vomit, experts say.
Sawyer was immediately quarantined upon arrival in Lagos – a city of 21 million people – and Nigerian authorities say his fellow travelers were advised of Ebola’s symptoms and then were allowed to leave. The incubation period can be as long as 21 days, meaning anyone infected may not fall ill for several weeks.
Liberian Assistant Health Minister Tolbert Nyenswah told The Associated Press last week that there had been no screening at Liberia’s Monrovia airport.
That changed quickly over the weekend, when President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said a new policy on inspecting and testing all outgoing and incoming passengers will be strictly observed.
She also announced that some borders were being closed and communities with large numbers of Ebola cases would be quarantined.
International travelers departing from the capitals of Sierra Leone and Guinea are also being checked for signs of fever, airport officials said. Buckets of chlorine are also on hand at Sierra Leone’s airport in Freetown for disinfection, authorities said.
Still, detecting Ebola in departing passengers might be tricky, since its initial symptoms are similar to many other diseases, including malaria and typhoid fever.
‘It will be very difficult now to contain this outbreak because it’s spread,’ Heymann said. ‘The chance to stop it quickly was months ago before it crossed borders … but this can still be stopped if there is good hospital infection control, contact tracing and collaboration between countries.’
Nigerian authorities so far have identified 59 people who came into contact with Sawyer and have tested 20, said Lagos State Health Commissioner Jide Idris. Among them were officials from ECOWAS, a West African governing body, airline employees, health workers and the Nigerian ambassador to Liberia, he said. He said there have been no new cases of the disease.
