and unlike many other west african countries where the virus has spread rapidly nigeria has a robust health care system in place vertefeuille said it has a large health care workforce he said once nigerian health officials confirmed the traveler liberianamerican financial consultant patrick sawyer had ebola they acted quickly to contain it said erin hohlfelder the global health policy director for u2 frontman bonos one campaign another setback an elaborate social media prank urging nigerians to drink excessive amounts of salt water to avoid catching the ebola virus it also relied on the expertise of groups such as the cdc and who lagos has a lot of health assets including a large hospital system and a fleet of ambulances case in pioint he eventually recovered from the virus but not before being treated by a doctor who later died the latest ebola news ebola a virus to make leaders healthy fiancee of us ebola patient calls health workers angels from god from the minute they were aware of the first case they established an emergency operations center with a coordinated effort by a central body with clear lines of accountability rather than a dispersed response hohlfelder said eight died of ebola in total nigeria had 20 confirmed cases before the outbreak was contained to clamp down on the hysteria the government asked politicians teachers religious leaders and celebrities to help communicate accurate information said edwin ikhuoria the nigerian representative for the one campaign two people died and at least 20 people were hospitalized as a result according to the nigerian newspaper vanguard news one person infected with ebola was too scared to come forward evading a manhunt for several days before public health authorities were able to track him down john vertefeuille head of the us centers for disease control and preventions ebola response team in nigeria said contact tracing also played a key role in stopping the spread of the virus to strengthen its response even further the government enlisted the help of international nonprofits such as one save the children and doctors without borders groups that already had a presence in nigeria with a staff experienced in responding to disease outbreaks however there were some missteps the hoax spread like wildfire for several days in august after six weeks with no new cases the world health organization declared nigeria ebolafree today ebola entered nigeria a country of 178 million people in july when a sick passenger flew from liberia into lagos nigerias largest and busiest city 151 the ebola virus continues to rage through west africa but a few countries in the region have managed to contain the outbreak health officials set up a case management system to track and monitor patient contacts vertefeuille said they followed nearly 900 people who were potentially exposed to ebola making 18500 visits to check for symptoms he pointed out what we saw was two outbreaks in nigeria we saw an ebola outbreak and an outbreak of