Not only has Ebola hit Lagos, which is huge, it got there by plane. That plane stopped in Togo along the way. Some passengers will have gotten off there. The Ebola patient vomited while on the plane then died at after being brought to hospital on landing at Lagos; anybody who used the airplane's toilet facilities plausibly came into contact with infectious materials. Here's ABC, from two days ago:
Sawyer reportedly did not show Ebola symptoms when he boarded the plane, Plyler said, but by the time he arrived in Nigeria he was vomiting and had diarrhea. There has not been another recently recorded case of Ebola spreading through air travel, he added.
Nearly 50 other passengers on the flight are being monitored for signs of Ebola but are not being kept in isolation, said an employee at Nigeria's Ministry of Health, who insisted on anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press.
The disease has a 2-21 day incubation period according to reports. So we've 19 days before we know whether those non-isolated passengers are in the clear. If one of them isn't, somebody's going to have to piece together all the people that non-isolated infectious individual came into contact with in the prior couple of days. The plane stopped in Togo on the way to Nigeria; nothing's reported on what's going there. Today's reports are not more reassuring:
The fact that a sick Liberian could board a flight to Nigeria raised new fears that other passengers could take the disease beyond Africa. Nigeria’s international airports were screening passengers arriving from foreign countries, and health officials were also working with ports and land borders to raise awareness of the disease. Togo’s government also said it was on high alert.
An outbreak in Lagos, a megacity where many live lived in cramped conditions, could be a major public-health disaster.
There being no particular money in finding a cure for Ebola, and there being non-trivial risk from the disease, would it be too much to ask that a prize be established for whomever comes up with an effective treatment or vaccine so that the Red Death not hold illimitable dominion over all?
