Fear and uncertainty have gripped workers as well as patients and their relatives in the University College Hospital (UCH) of Ibadan, as an unconfirmed case of an Ebola patient became the talk of the day in the hospital community yesterday afternoon.

News Express learnt that the doctor who was to commence treatment on a patient created the confusion when he stated that the appearance of the patient resembled that of an Ebola sufferer.

The patient was reported to have been moved from neighbouring Lagos (where Ebola has claimed some lives) to the UCH at about 2am yesterday and was rushed to the Accident and Emergency (A&E) Unit of the hospital for urgent medical attention.

Investigations by News Express however showed that series of tests so far conducted on the patient did not show any sign of Ebola.

A source at the UCH Accident & Emergency Unit, who craved for anonymity, told News Express: “Truly speaking, I don’t think this is a case of Ebola because, as much as I know, doctors are still carrying out different tests on this patient and have not revealed if the patient has Ebola or not.”

Another source at the Unit outrightly dismissed the rumour, saying: “If it had been Ebola, we would not be dressing like this. The management would have instructed us to protect ourselves with overall and special gloves, so as to be on a very safe side.”

As at the time of filing this report, security had been tightened at the Unit while several precautionary measures had been taken by the Management of the hospital, including using Infra-red Thermometers to screen people walking into the different wards.

•Photo shows doctors in an Ebola isolation unit (not at the UCH).

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