Doctors in public hospitals on Thursday suspended a nearly five-week long strike over an Ebola outbreak which has killed two people and infected five others in Lagos.A statement issued by the Nigerian Medical ...Association cited “the incursion of Ebola into Nigeria” as a main reason for suspending the strike.
AFP reports that the emergence of Ebola in Lagos, sub-Saharan Africa’s largest city with more than 20 million people, has created further panic over the worst ever outbreak of the deadly tropical disease.
The densely-packed city has a weak public health system which experts say is poorly equipped to manage a significant number of Ebola patients.
The state Commissioner of Health, Jide Idris, late Wednesday appealed to striking doctors to resume work, saying: “We all must come together to address this situation.”
The patient who brought the virus to Lagos on July 20, Liberian finance ministry employee Patrick Sawyer, was placed under quarantine at a private hospital.
Since the start of the year, Ebola has killed nearly 1,000 people and infected more than 1,700, mostly in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone