Dr. Ameyo Adadevoh
The woman who saved a nation from the deadly Ebola virus
Here's a brief timeline of her life:
- Dr. Ameyo Stella Adadevoh was the lead physician at a private hospital in Lagos, when Nigeria had its first case of the ebola virus disease in July, 2014.
- She was born in Lagos in 1956 and qualified as a doctor in 1981.
- In 2012 Dr. Adadevoh was the first to alert the Nigerian Ministry of Health when the H1N1 Flu Virus (Swine Flu) spread to Nigeria.
- In 2014 She was the first to diagnose the Ebola virus disease brought into Nigeria by a foreign national who was to attend a conference in the country.
- Nigeria had never had an Ebola case before and was not yet prepared to contain an outbreak
- Even when threatened with a lawsuit, she resisted pressure from the patient's employers to allow him attend the conference he had come for
- Dr Adadevoh and her team exposed themselves to great risk as they cared for and attempted to contain the first case Ebola virus disease in Nigeria
- In August 2014, she tested positive to the virus and died about 2 weeks later
- In December, 2014, she was named “Number 1 Humanitarian Everyone Should Know About (2014)” by the International Medical Corps UK
- Also In December, 2014, she was named “Leading Woman of 2014” by CNN
“[...] if Dr. Adedavoh had not stood her ground in confining Sawyer ─ and Ebola ─ to the [...] Hospital. It would have spread around Nigeria and most certainly to other parts of the world.”
“[...] Our country owes her a debt we can never repay.”