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Bound by tragic fate:
Sawyer and Duncan, both carried Ebola to other countries from Liberia and both
succumbed to disease.
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Several press reports carry the death
of Thomas Eric Duncan the Liberian who arrived Texas, US and later was
diagnosed positive for Ebola.
GRAPPHITTI NEWS calls for a proper
debrief Nigerians volunteers who have signed up to go and fight Ebola in West
African countries.
The Nation reports that no fewer than
591 Nigerian have registered to join the Ebola volunteers group for deployment
in hard-hit Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.
Minister of Health Prof. Onyebuchi
Chukwu, stated this yesterday while giving updates on global Ebola Virus
Disease.
Prof. Chukwu, said there are six
countries now having active cases of Ebola - Liberia, Sierra Leone,
Guinea, Democratic Republic of Congo, United States and Spain.
Explaining that Nigeria has no active
case of Ebola, he said: “Nigeria has had 19 cases with seven deaths, it is not
20 cases as being reported by foreign media. There is no single case of active
Ebola Virus disease in Nigeria; no single contact that is at presently under
surveillance in any part of the country.”
He said the ban on repatriation of
bodies as well as inter-state transportation of bodies are still in force.
He said: “That ban remains except where
approval had been granted by the Minister of Health.
“The established precautionary
protocols at mass gatherings will continue and the people who had been
organizing mass gatherings do contact us and we do work with them, they provide
the sanitizers at the venue and we provide the personnel who teach them, assist
them to carry out their temperature checks. That should continue.” He added
“As part of Nigeria’s contributions to
the international team that will be set up to tackle Ebola Virus disease in
those countries, already Nigeria volunteers from different health professions
have been registering with us, willing to join the international force that
will go to Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea to help out with the containment
and as of now 591 Nigerians have already registered with us in three registers
we opened in Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt.”
“Before we allow them to leave, certain
conditions must be met, the President has to approve for them to leave Nigeria
for them to leave as volunteers.”
“Secondly, they have to be given proper
training on how they would avoid the disease and ensure that they don’t get it.
They have to be fully and properly trained according to our standards in
Nigeria which is fairly high.” He said
He also said the on-going training and
re-training of health personnel being conducted by Federal Ministry of Health
will be sustained while the laboratory capacity for the diagnosis of Ebola
Virus diseases will continue to be expanded.
“We are awaiting the arrival of three mobile
laboratories that Federal ministry of Heath ordered as part of the
measures to contain the virus and they will be used in other parts of the
country while currently we are working on getting installed capacity in three
centres to begin to diagnose Ebola Virus disease, we have installed capacity at
University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital, Lagos University, Teaching
Hospital Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital, Kano and University of Nigeria Teaching
Hospital, Enugu. We will continue to upgrade, we will not relent.”
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