LAGOS
Nigerian authorities have confirmed another death from the Ebola virus, the fifth in Africa's most populous country.
"Minister of Health Onyebuchi Chukwu regrets to announce the death, this evening, of one of the primary contacts of the index Ebola Virus Disease case," Dan Nwomeh, a spokesman for the minister said in a statement Tuesday tonight.
The index case refers to Patrick Sawyer, an infected Liberian who visited Nigeria last month and died of the Ebola virus.
"(She was) the most senior doctor who participated in the management of the patient (Sawyer), a female consultant physician," said the statement.
"With this unfortunate development the total number of Ebola-related deaths in Nigeria now stands at five," it confirmed.
The doctor was among three people still quarantined after the minister announced Monday the discharge of five of the eight people undergoing supportive treatment.
""The two other patients currently under treatment in the isolation wards are stable and are being taken care of," said the statement.
Over 100 people are still being watched to see if they will exhibit Ebola-related symptoms.
The Nigeria government has declared Ebola a national emergency, allocating $11.6 million to help curtail its spread.
Ebola, a contagious disease for which there is no known treatment or cure, has claimed more than one thousand lives in the West African countries of Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia.
The tropical fever, which first appeared in 1976 in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, can be transmitted to humans from wild animals.
It also reportedly spreads through contact with the body fluids of infected persons or of those who have died of the disease.
By Rafiu Ajakaye
englishnews@aa.com.tr
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