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* Sense of "hopelessness" in Nigeria, health official says
* Nigeria quarantining high-risk contacts of late doctor
* Doctor hid his exposure and infection, putting others atrisk
* WHO opens two-day talks on experimental drugs, vaccines
By Stephanie Nebehay
GENEVA, Sept 4 (Reuters) - Nigerian authorities aremonitoring nearly 400 people for signs of Ebola after they camein contact with a Port Harcourt doctor who died of the diseasebut hid the fact that he had been exposed, a senior Nigerianhealth official said on Thursday.
Dr. Abdulsalami Nasidi, project director at Nigeria Centrefor Disease Control, said there was a sense of "hopelessness"due to the lack of proven drugs or vaccines to treat Ebola thathas infected 18 people in Africa's most populous nation.
In an interview with Reuters in Geneva, he said that moreisolation wards were being opened in the oil industry hub butvoiced confidence that there would not be "many cases" there.
After having contact with an Ebola patient and before hisown death on Aug. 22, the Port Harcourt doctor, named by localauthorities as Iyke Enemuo, carried on treating patients and metscores of friends, relatives and medics, leaving about 60 ofthem at high risk of infection, the World Health Organisationsaid on Wednesday.
The doctor's wife, who is also a physician, and a patient inthe same hospital have been infected with Ebola, the WHO said.
"Everything about this doctor was in secrecy, he violatedour public health laws by treating a patient with a highlypathogenic agent who revealed to him that he had contact withEbola and didn't want to be treated in Lagos because he might beput in isolation," Nasidi said.
"He treated him in secrecy outside hospital premises. Whenhe became ill he did not reveal to his colleagues that he hadcontact with someone who contracted Ebola. He was taken toGeneral Hospital, a private hospital that sees everybody.
"That is the only case that effectively escaped oursurveillance network. We are paying now for it," Nasidi said.
He spoke on the sidelines of a two-day WHO experts meeting aimed at speeding development of Ebola drugs and vaccines.
The deadly virus can be spread by direct contact with bodyfluids and secretions of an infected person or duringtraditional burial rituals, the WHO says.
The latest outbreak has spread from Guinea to Liberia,Sierra Leone, Nigeria, and Senegal and, with the death toll atmore than 1,900 people as of Wednesday, has killed more peoplethan all outbreaks since Ebola was first uncovered in 1976.
"People are living in a state of hopelessness seeing thedisease has no cure and no vaccine but has great potential tospread," Nasidi said.
"380 CONTACTS IN OUR DRAGNET"
Nasidi said the Port Harcourt doctor was visited by friendsand family in hospital, including some who "laid hands" on him.
"As we are talking now, we have more than 380 of suchcontacts in our dragnet," he said. Those at high risk are beingquarantined, and some 500 volunteers and health care workers arechecking on all exposed people twice a day, he said.
A 28-bed isolation ward for Ebola patients has opened in thecity, which is home to many expatriate workers in majorinternational oil companies, but authorities did not forecastmany more cases, Nasidi said.
He said most of the exposed contacts were near the end ofthe 21-incubation period for the disease, which starts withfever and muscle pain, followed by vomiting and diarrhoea.
"So we are monitoring and are sure we shan't miss out on anycontacts that come out with infection that could be transmitted.A contact who has no symptoms doesn't transmit even if he hasthe virus. So this is why we are hopeful," he said.
The United Nations said on Wednesday that $600 million insupplies would be needed to fight West Africa's Ebolaoutbreak.
"We must fight Ebola because there is huge anxiety for ourpopulations along with significant social and economicconsequences," Younoussa Ballo, secretary-general of Guinea'shealth ministry, told Reuters at Thursday's talks. "Researchmust be speeded up to have medicines to confront this epidemic."
Human safety trials are due to begin this week on a vaccinefrom GlaxoSmithKline Plc and later this year on one fromNewLink Genetics Corp. Johnson & Johnson saidon Thursday that clinical trials of its vaccine would commencein early 2015, accelerated from late 2015 or early 2016.
NewLink founder Charles Link told Reuters in Geneva: "Theclinical trials do take some time. Everybody is trying as hardand furiously as possible to move those trials forward asrapidly as possible with the regulations, scientific and ethicalconstraints.
"Just because we have the drugs we haven't shown anythingabout their effectiveness so we have to do these initial studiesbefore it would be appropriate to release them on any kind ofbroader scale," he said.
"So that is really what our group is here for and a numberof other groups like ours, is to try to coordinate thoseactivities to do things at speeds that haven't be done before."
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said thisweek a federal contract worth up to $42.3 million would helpaccelerate testing of an experimental Ebola virus treatmentbeing developed by privately held Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc. (additional reporting by Antony Paone in Geneva; editing bySonya Hepinstall)
