Liberian diagnosed of Ebola virus in Lagos is dead

The Liberian who was yesterday detained in quarantined and being tested for the dreaded Ebola virus has been confirmed dead.

The man, Patrick Sawyer, was WASH consultant at the Ministry of Finance.
A Liberian government official, speaking on condition of anonymity said the news of Sawyer's death was relayed to Liberia by the Nigerian embassy, early Friday morning.

Sawyer's death is the first recorded case of one of the world's deadliest diseases in Nigeria.
Ebola has killed 632 people across Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone since an outbreak began in February, straining a string of weak health systems despite international help.

The virus -- which starts off with flu-like symptoms and often ends with horrific hemorrhaging -- has infected about 1,048 people and killed an estimated 632 since this winter, according to the numbers on July 17 from the World Health Organization.

The special adviser on public health to the Lagos state government, Yewande Adeshina, told a news conference that Sawyer had collapsed on arrival at Lagos airport from Liberia on Sunday. He was rushed to hospital and put in an isolation ward, she said. "The patient was admitted and detained on suspicion of possible EBV (Ebola virus) infection, while blood sample collection and testing was initiated," she said in her statement, adding that "results are pending."

Sawyer's death comes in the wake of reports out of Sierra Leone that the head doctor fighting the deadly tropical virus in Sierra Leone has himself caught the disease.