Bankole, the only son of the late Dr. Stella Adadevoh, tells Arukaino Umukoro about his mum’s heroic efforts in the country’s fight against Ebola...Can you recollect her encounter with the late Liberian diplomat, Patrick Sawyer, who brought Ebola into Nigeria?
The actual story was that when this man (Sawyer) flew into Nigeria from Liberia to attend a conference, he fell ill on his arrival and was taken to First Consultants because the general hospitals were on strike. When he got there, he was first treated for malaria on a Sunday. That weekend was my dad’s 60th birthday and my mum wasn’t in the hospital. We were all at home celebrating. On that Monday, she went to the hospital and saw him. Immediately, these were her own words to me, she said she was very disturbed, because it looked as if blood was seeping through his skin. She said she knew it was not malaria. When she asked him where he had been and he said Liberia, she immediately suspected it could be Ebola.
Interestingly, three months or so before, we were just watching the news when she said, “Nigeria is not prepared for Ebola.” Back then, she immediately did her research on Ebola, noting that Nigeria needed to be prepared if there was an outbreak. She printed those papers long ago. So, when this man came, she immediately suspected; although at the time, she didn’t have any positive result that it was Ebola. The Liberian officials there were very furious and said she must release him, claiming that she was holding him against his will; and she had kidnapped him. But she said she could not let him leave the hospital for the public good, and he must stay there because she suspected he had a haemorrhagic disease which was infectious.
