Health
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Nigeria has been declared Ebola free by World Health organisation on Monday, October 20
| By Anayo Ezugwu | Oct. 27, 2014 @ 01:00 GMT |
NIGERIA’s fight against the dreaded Ebola Virus Disease, EVD, yielded fruit on Monday, October 20, when the World Health Organisation officially declared the country free of the disease. The declaration came after those quarantined recovered and there was no new reported cases in the country after six weeks. Rui Gama Vaz, representative of WHO said Nigeria’s fight against the virus was a spectacular success story. “It shows that Ebola can be contained, but we must be clear that we have only won a battle, the war will only end when West Africa is also declared free of Ebola,” he said.
The virus was imported to Nigeria by Patrick Sawyer, Liberian-American diplomat, in Lagos, on July 20. By the time it was confirmed that he had Ebola about 11 staff of the hospital in Lagos where he was treated had caught the virus – four of them later died. The situation could have worsened but for strong and timely intervention of both the federal and statement governments which identified and tracked down everyone who might possibly have been in contact with the patient. An initial contact list of 281 people soon increased to a staggering 894 – each of them were visited and checked repeatedly for signs of infection. In all, there were 19 confirmed cases of infection in Nigeria and eight deaths, including Sawyer.
In a bid to curtail the spread of the virus, the federal government, led by President Goodluck Jonathan, rose to the challenge and held meetings with various stakeholders in the health sector. On Wednesday, August 13, the president held a meeting with all the state governors, their health commissioners and representatives of the World Health Organisation, WHO, in the country, to map out various strategies to deal with the scourge. Some of the measures taken by the government included establishment of at least one Ebola centre in each state of the federation including Abuja federal capital territory.
After the meetings, Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State, advocated for the stoppage of traditional shaking of hands as part of measures to stop the spread of the Ebola virus in the country. He said: “We have to drop our traditional behaviours like shaking of hands and nobody should be offended,” he stated while briefing newsmen on the outcome of the meeting. He also urged people to stop defecating and urinating in public, particularly at this time of the country’s health crisis. He added: “This is not the time to make fast naira. Next week will be defining for us to know what cases have multiplied. This is not something you keep in a religious house to pray. Infected persons are not patients you can move by taxis, if they need prayers now it can be done electronically. We are now 99 percent following the cases. We need to have a 100 percent because if we have one infected person, it is a global risk not just to Nigeria.”
This year’s outbreak of EVD which could be caused by monkeys or bats is worst on record. It has killed 4,546 people across the three most-affected countries, Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone and travellers from the region have infected two people in Texas and one in Madrid, Spain.
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