A country of 170 million 'free of Ebola'

There are many observers - mostly outsiders but plenty of residents as well - who regard Africa as a continent of  derelict infrastructure, where corruption rages and horrible diseases spread unchecked, until Western aid intervenes. 

To those observers today we commend the news item: "Nigeria officially free of Ebola" - with its Ebola treatment centre now standing empty.  How did this happen?  Well, an Ebola sufferer did fly into Lagos from Liberia in July - he was an American-Liberian diplomat, Patrick Sawyer, ostensibly on his way to a conference, but probably to seek one of Nigeria's pentacostal 'miracle' healers. 

Somehow he was spotted as being unwell, and taken to a hospital (not a specialist isolation facility) where he came under the supervision of one doctor Stella Ameyo Adedevoh, a lady who treated him, but who, much to the patient's fury, refused to let him leave the hospital.  The Liberian government petitioned to have him released - so did a cohort of lawyers and pen-pushers.  The doctor stood firm.  After a few days, the patient died of Ebola and sadly, the doctor and eight of the other carers of the patient, who had not been equipped with space suits, became infected.  Outside the hospital, in the teeming 20 million city of Lagos, anyone with whom the patient might have been briefly in contact with, was tracked and after three weeks, shown to be negative from the virus.  The net result was that, although in the countries of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, the death toll passed the 4000 mark, the grand total in Nigeria was 20 cases and 8 deaths. Sadly, Dr. Adedevoh and three of her assistants were among the fatalities.

Had the Liberian been allowed to leave hospital, as many bureaucrats wished, and allowed to roam free in Lagos while he was highly infective, the consequences might have been catastrophic.  The virus could have spread uncontrolled among Nigeria's 170 million people.  There could have been hundreds of thousands of cases and tens of thousands of fatalities.  The actions of Dr. Adedvoh prevented this.

To this end Dr. Adedevoh's achievements and service to humanity should stand out in medical history to rank with the greatest women of the profession: Florence Nightingale, Mary Seacole and Elizabeth Garrett Anderson.  Don't forget her name.