The News Minute | August 7, 2014 | 01:43 pm IST

Lagos: The Nigerian government has declared the Ebola outbreak in the country a national emergency.

Health Minister Onyebuchi Chukwu said this at an emergency meeting on Wednesday convened by the House of Representatives Committee on Health over the Ebola outbreak in Abuja, the nation's capital, Xinhua reported.

He said, out of six Nigerians diagnosed with the Ebola virus, one had died on Tuesday, adding that the other five patients were receiving treatment.

The minister said everyone in the world now was at risk, adding that the experience of Nigeria had opened the eyes of the world to the reality of the Ebola virus disease.

He said there was no empirical evidence to show that the bitter kola nut would prevent or cure the highly infectious disease.

The outbreak, by far the largest in the nearly 40-year history of the disease, has infected 1,711 people and killed 932 this year in four western African countries- Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone- according to the World Health Organisation.

With IANS