Bodies Of Ebola Victims Cremated In Lagos

Bodies of the four Nigerians, who died of Ebola Virus Disease, EVD, have been cremated in line with World Health Organisation, WHO, requirements for disposal of such corpses. The body of the index (first) case, Patrick Sawyer was the first to be cremated on July 25, 2014.

A health official at the Emergency Operation Centre, EOC, of the Mainland Hospital, Lagos, who confirmed the development, said

“All the bodies of those who died of Ebola from this centre have been cremated. None was allowed to undergo traditional burial because extreme care is being taken to prevent further infections,” the official noted.

The WHO in recommending that people who die from Ebola should be promptly and safely buried, notes that cremation, which is the application of high temperature to reduce bodies to basic chemical components (ashes), is ideal for safe disposal of bodies of such persons in order to minimise further transmission.

While the ECOWAS Commission stated that the remains of its Protocol Assistant at the Lagos Liaison Office, Mr. Salihu Abdulqudir Jatto, who succumbed to the Ebola Virus Disease, EVD, on August 12, 2014, had been laid to rest in a private ceremony in Ikorodu, Lagos state.

The Commission had earlier paid a condolence visit to the deceased’s widow and other members of his family.

Jatto was among persons that assisted the American-Liberian Mr. Patrick Sawyer, and contracted the disease from the late Sawyer who took ill on arrival in Nigeria on July 20, 2014 on his way to a regional conference in Calabar, and later died in a Lagos hospital of the EVD.