Ebola continues to spread in Nigeria
ABUJA, Nigeria - Nigeria has one more confirmed Ebola case, a nurse who was treating the Liberian-American who flew into the country with the disease and died of it last month, the health minister announced Monday.
The nurse tested positive for the Ebola virus over the weekend, Health Minister Onyebuchi Chukwu told reporters in Abuja, the capital. That brings the total number of confirmed Ebola cases in Nigeria to 10, including two who have already died, the Liberian-American Patrick Sawyer and another nurse. The other eight cases are being treated in isolation in Lagos. All nine Nigerians were infected through direct contact with Sawyer, said Chukwu.
Nigerian health officials are working to prevent Ebola from spreading beyond those who had contact with Sawyer. Nigerian authorities have 177 primary and secondary contacts of Sawyer under surveillance, said Chukwu.
Ebola has killed 961 people in Liberia, Guinea, Sierra Leone and Nigeria.
CBS News correspondent Debora Patta reports medical organizations fighting to contain Ebola across four West African nations are being stretched beyond their capacity.
Many infected people are being left to die alone in their villages. In some cases, the bodies of Ebola victims are simply being dumped in the street.
Researchers believe they have now tracked down the start of the virus to a two-year-old boy from a remote village in Guinea, but it wasn't until March that the mystery disease was identified as Ebola. By then dozens had been infected.
On the front line of the battle to contain the deadly virus sit health workers, who are bearing the brunt of it. Scores have died and a leader of Liberia's Heath Workers Association George Williams said they are growing increasingly angry.
"If you were to go into the isolation centers right now, you will see the number of our colleagues -- health workers -- who are now lying in isolation centers or dead from the infectious Ebola virus," said Williams. "How many have died? Yet we are ready to go out there and fight and yet we go hungry and come back home hungry."
Meanwhile, fearful Togo officials have asked the Confederation of African Football to move a game out of Ebola-affected Guinea as the outbreak of the deadly disease threatens to badly disrupt the African Cup's final qualifying round.
Games involving Sierra Leone are already under scrutiny after that country said it would not host any football matches until further notice because of Ebola.
The Togo Football Federation's request refers to its first game of the final group stage in Guinea in the first week of September. The Togo federation said over the weekend that its players and officials feared traveling to Guinea, where the Ebola outbreak started and where over 300 people are believed to have died from the virus.
"We are scared by the situation prevailing in that zone," the Togolese federation said, adding it would follow advice from its government, which would likely prevent the party traveling to Guinea.
Togo stressed it would not "put in danger" the lives of its players and officials and said some of the squad members had already expressed fears over going to Guinea. The Confederation of African Football is yet to rule on requests from Togo and Sierra Leone to move qualifying games away from Ebola-affected areas.