Late Port Harcourt doctor knew diplomat had Ebola - Rivers State Govt

At a press conference on Friday evening August 29th, Rivers State Commissioner for Health, Dr. Samson Parker, said that late Dr. Iyke Enemou, who treated ECOWAS diplomat Olu Koye (pictured above), was aware that Mr Koye had the Ebola Virus Disease.

"He had received the late Dr. Patrick Sawyer in Lagos. Upon developing the symptom, confided in a female colleague, called Lilian, who contacted the late Enemuo. It was after contact was established with Dr. Enemuo that Olu Koye flew to Port Harcourt to see him. To conceal his movement, Koye, who had been quarantined among other people for having primary contact with the late Dr. Sawyer, the Liberian-American who transmuted the Ebola virus into Nigeria, sneaked out of the isolation unit where he was being observed and took a flight to Port Harcourt and switched off his phone so that he could not be reached or traced should he answer a call.”

When he got to Port Harcourt, he checked into Mandate Gardens Hotel in the Rumunokoro area in Obio/Akpor LGA which is close to Sam Steel Clinic where Dr. Enemuo worked.

"From what we have gathered so far, Dr. Enemuo, knowing that Koye was positive of the Ebola virus took some measures of precaution to protect himself while treating Koye.

“Knowing the enormity of what he was doing, Enemuo upon Koye’s departure for Lagos, poured bleach all over the room that Koye slept in order to sanitise the place.”

The commissioner revealed that Dr Enemuo, after falling ill, asked another doctor at Good Heart Hospital along Evo Road in G.R.A. to treat him, but at no point did Dr Enemuo tell his colleague that he may have contracted the Ebola virus, instead he lied that he had fever.

"He lied. He did not tell the doctor that was treating him his full story. But the doctor, a nice and conscientious professional, suspected that Enemuo was either hiding something or was suffering from a strange ailment because he proved negative to malaria, fever and typhoid fever.

“To be sure of what he was doing, he spoke to other very experienced doctors about the strange case he was handling in his hospital.”

The commissioner said the doctor treating Enemuo even invited some other doctors to come over to his hospital to see if they could understand Enemuo’s strange illness but no doctor came.

Dr. Enemuo's health deteriorated until he died on August 22nd after which his body was taken to the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital.