Lagos has 8 suspected cases of Ebola – Official

6 other people have been quarantined.

There are now eight suspected cases of Ebola in Lagos, the state government announced on Tuesday.

The Lagos State Commissioner for Health, Jide Idris, while speaking with journalists at Alausa, said all eight came in contact with Patrick Sawyer, the Liberian who died of the disease last month.

Mr. Idris added that six additional people, who came in contact with Mr. Sawyer, have been quarantined but have not shown signs of the disease.

The government has stepped up its effort to trace all those that came in contact with the Liberian.

The second confirmed case of infection after Mr Sawyer was a doctor at a Lagos private hospital. The doctor treated the Liberian after he fell ill at the Murtala Muhammed Airport on his way to attend an ECOWAS conference in Calabar.

The Nigerian Minister of Health, Onyebuchi Chukwu, had on Monday confirmed that the doctor was down with the virus, which has killed over 800 people in three West African countries.

The federal and state governments have said they have adopted strategies to identify and check the possible spread of the deadly virus in Nigeria.