Ameyo Adadevoh

Ameyo Adadevoh was born in Lagos in 1956 into a family of doctors and public figures; her great-grandfather was the nationalist Herbert Macaulay. She trained at the University of Lagos, specialised in endocrinology in London, and spent more than twenty years as a consultant at First Consultants Medical Centre, a private hospital in Lagos, where colleagues knew her as exacting and warm.

On 20 July 2014 a Liberian-American named Patrick Sawyer collapsed at Lagos airport and was brought to her hospital. He said he had malaria. Ebola was raging in Liberia, and she suspected it, ordered tests, and put him in isolation. Sawyer wanted to leave; he was expected at a conference. Liberian officials telephoned to demand his release and accused her of holding him against his will. Her hospital had no proper protective equipment and no experience of the disease. She refused to let him go, and when he tried to pull out his drip she and her staff physically restrained him. Tests confirmed Ebola. He died on 25 July.

The outbreak was contained to twenty cases, and Nigeria, a country of some 180 million people with the largest city in Africa, was declared free of the disease by the World Health Organization in October. Eight people had died. Among them was Adadevoh, who fell ill in early August and died on the nineteenth.

Nigeria awarded her a national honour after her death, and a foundation in her name works on public health.