Second Nurse Passes Away This Morning - Relatives

A nurse, Obi Justina Ejelonu, who attended to Patrick Sawyer, a Liberian-American Ebola carrier who brought the disease to Nigeria, has died this morning in Lagos.

According to SaharaReporters, Obi Justina Ejelonu’s relatives called the reporters to announce that she passed away this morning in a quarantine facility in Lagos.

Until her death, the outspoken nurse, who worked at the B Ward – a male ward which is now referred to as Ebola Ward – of the Yaba Mainland General Hospital, was at the center of a campaign to get the Zmapp experimental drugs to Ebola victims in Nigeria. John Okiyi-Kalu, of the Igboville/Oganiru Ndigbo Foundation, who also confirmed her death, started the Internet campaign a few days ago.

Ms. Ejelonu, 25, was one of the primary contacts with Patrick Sawyer at a Lagos Hospital where he received treatment after he was rushed from the Murtala Muhammed Airport in Lagos where he collapsed.

Ms. Ejelonu’s last Facebook post reads: “I never contacted his fluids. I checked his Vitals, helped him with his food, (he was too weak)…I basically touched where his hands touched and that’s the only contact. Not directly with his fluids. At a stage, he yanked off his infusion and we had blood everywhere on his bed…but the ward maids took care of that and changed his linens with great precaution…”

Last week, Health Minister Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu, confirmed that a nurse who was in contact with Sawyer has become the one of the first victims of Ebola who died after the disease was brought to Nigeria.

Sawyer, a US citizen, was travelling from Liberia, the center of Ebola epidemic, to Nigeria and was admitted to a Lagos hospital where he died from the symptoms of the disease last month.

Since February the deadly virus has claimed up to 1069 lives in West Africa, mostly Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia, and keeps spreading across the continent.

Meanwhile, the Federal Government on August 4 set up a special committee to carry out research on the EVD, to receive and verify claims relating to Ebola treatment, so as to analyze the Ebola-related researches worldwide.