Ebola Virus Disease was something Nigerians only heard of in news from other countries. Patients and carriers of the virus were not known to Nigeria until things changed on July 20, 2014 with the landing of an ASky Airlines plane which had Patrick Sawyer on board.

Sawyer had taken ill on the flight from Lome, Togo and on landing; he was taken to the First Consultant Hospital, Obalende, Lagos. After two days of treatment, Sawyer was diagnosed with the deadly. Incidentally, Dr. Stella Shade Ameyo Adadevoh, 58, who treated him, became the first Nigerian to contract Ebola.

The late Dr. Adadevoh was an endocrinologist at the First Consultant Hospital. She was the most senior of the medical team that attended to sawyer.

She showed symptoms of Ebola infection a few days after Mr. Sawyer died and had been in isolation in Yaba, Lagos where she was being treated.

Adadevoh’s heroic and patriotic deeds will for long be remembered. She took it upon herself to help Nigeria prevent further spread of the virus as she took the case to the government.

She put her foot down and prevented Sawyer from leaving the hospital, when it was confirmed that he had Ebola. Even when it became a diplomatic matter and there were pleas from the Liberian diplomats that Sawyer be released and allowed to attend a conference in Calabar, she stood her ground. The patient went hysterical and peed on medical personnel, Adadevoh held on strong.

While describing the late Adadevoh as a patriot, the Managing Director of Health Management Organisation (HMO) Dr. Ladi Okuboyejo said “ we are particularly concerned that if someone could be so patriotic as to save millions of Nigerians from the hardship of this pestilence, the least we can do is to make an appeal to the international community for assistance.”

Incidentally, the late Dr. Adadevoh comes from a line of patriots, being a great grandchild of Herbert Macaulay, the revered father of Nigerian nationalism. Her grandmother, Mrs Sarah Idowu Abigail Adadevoh was Macaulay’s daughter, while her father, Prof. Babatunde Kwaku Adadevoh, who was a grandson of the grand old man of Nigerian anti-colonial politics was also a physician.

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