Nigeria Has Only One Ebola Patient

Nigeria said Tuesday that two more people had been released from isolation after recovering from Ebola, leaving only one living patient with the disease in the country.

According to the health ministry, Nigeria has recorded 13 confirmed cases of Ebola, including the Liberian-American Patrick Sawyer, who brought the virus to the economic capital Lagos on July 20 and died five days later.

In all five people have died of the disease in Nigeria.

Health Minister Onyebuchi Chukwu announced that an additional two patients had been discharged, bringing the number of those released to seven.

"Two of the treated patients, a male doctor and a female nurse were discharged yesterday evening, 25th August, 2014, having satisfied the criteria for discharge," he told reporters in Abuja.

The only patient in the country who currently has Ebola is the wife of a doctor who treated Sawyer, he added.

"She is stable but still on treatment at the isolation ward in Lagos," Chukwu said.

Dozens of people who were at risk of exposure are being monitored and the caseload could rise.

The World Health Organization said last week that it was encouraged by the situation in Nigeria, given that all of the confirmed cases came from a single chain of transmission.

The deadliest-ever outbreak of the virus has killed more than 1,400 people in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone since the start of the year.