South-West governors on Wednesday rose from a
meeting in Lagos and called on the Federal Government to
stop the spread of the deadly Ebola virus.
Before that, the Minsiter of Health, Prof.
Onyebuchi Chukwu and the Lagos State Commissioner for Health, Dr. Jide Idris,
announced at separate news conferences that the matron of the Lagos hospital
where a Liberian-born American, Patrick Sawyer, was admitted, died on Tuesday
afternoon.
The matron whose name was not given
by Chukwu,and Idris, was reported by the
media on Wednesday to have shown the symptoms of the virus.
She was among the health workers that attended to
Sawyer who died in the Lagos hospital on July 25 and officially, the first
Nigerian casualty.
The matron had been quarantined alongside seven
others at the Infectious Diseases Hospital, Yaba, Lagos for close monitoring.
One of them, a female medical doctor, who also
attended to Sawyer, had also contracted the disease.
About 59 people were reported to have had direct
or primary contacts with the Liberian-American. Twenty seven others who had
secondary contacts with the primary contacts had been traced.
Chukwu, while announcing the death of the Lagos
matron confirmed seven other Ebola cases, Idris called on religious
groups in the state to stop all gatherings until a solution to
Ebola outbreak was found.
The South-West governors first met behind
closed-doors at the Lagos House, Ikeja, and later with
commissioners for Health in the zone.
In attendance were the host
Governor, Babatunde Fashola; Olusegun
Mimiko(Ondo); Ibikunle Amosun(Ogun); Kayode Fayemi(Ekiti); and the
Deputy Governor of Oyo State, Moses Adeyemo.
They said the Federal Government must assist the
states by ensuring that all the nation’s borders in the zone were effectively
policed to ensure that Ebola virus did not get into their states.
Fashola, at a news conference said the meeting
afforded them the opportunity to share experiences and seek collaborative
efforts to prevent the spread of the virus in the zone.
He said, “The meeting addressed issues of
containment and the challenges of illegal borders.
“We also discussed possible support by the
Federal Government and coordination among states. We feel that it is imperative
that our collaboration suggests to us that Nigerians should not panic and that
we would overcome this with the very best practices and collaboration.
“It is important therefore that advocacy must
continue about what the risks are and the sources are.”
Amosun said Ogun State was overwhelmed and was
short of manpower and material to effectively man its over 100 illegal
borders where foreigners enter the state with ease.
He said, “We are more prone and more at risk to
Ebola virus and we have put all our security agencies and the respective medics
at these illegal borders.
“But when you have in excess of 100, you and I
know that the state doesn’t have the capacity to man these borders.
Mimiko said the onus lay on every
Nigerian to ensure that foreigners did not have unfettered access into the
country.
“Every Nigerian should know that those who aid
and abet illegal entry into Nigeria now could be up to something that could be
dangerous to the health of the country.”
Fayemi spoke on the possibility of Nigeria
seeking the assistance of the United States for ZMapp, an
experimental drug for the treatment of the EVD.
He said, “The drug has not been certified as a
cure for the disease; however, the Federal Government can try out its efficacy
in a controlled centre.”
FG confirms seven Ebola cases
The Health minister, at a news conference in
Abuja on Wednesday, said, “Nigeria has now recorded seven confirmed
cases of EVD.
“The first one was the index case, which is the
imported case from Liberia of which the victim(Sawyer) is now late.
“On August 5, 2014, the first known Nigerian to
die of the EVD was recorded and this was one of the nurses that attended to the
Liberian.
“The other five cases are currently being treated
at an isolation ward in Lagos.”
He added that all the Nigerians
diagnosed were primary contacts of the index case.
Chukwu also announced the appointment of Prof. O.
Onajole of the Lagos University Teaching Hospital as the director,
Communication and Community Mobilisation. for the EVD.
He pledged to visit Lagos within the
week, in company with his colleagues in the Ministry of Information, to assess
the situation on the ground.
He added that the 24/7 Emergency Operations
Centre planned by the government would be fully functional by
tomorrow (Thursday) . Dr. Faisal Shuaibu will be the Incident Manager of the
centre.
Shuaibu was expected to lead a
six-member inter-agency team, drawn from the National Primary Health Care
Development Agency, the US CDC, the WHO, UNICEF and the Bill and Medinda Gates
Foundation to Lagos to complete the setting up of the centre.
Chukwu said the team would be joined by other
personnel from the Lagos State Government, federal
hospitals in the state and the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control.
He added, “We are embarking on recruiting
additional health personnel to strengthen the team who are currently managing
the situation in Lagos.
“We are making arrangements to procure isolation
tents to quicken the pace of providing isolation wards in all the states of the
federation and the Federal Capital Territory.
“We are also setting up a special team to provide
counselling and psychosocial support to patients, identified contacts and their
families.”
The minister reassured Nigerians that the
government was working hard to ensure the containment of the outbreak.
Chukwu later told State House
correspondents after the Federal Executive Council meeting in Abuja, that he
had requested the experimental drug being used to treat two
American missionary doctors infected with the virus in Liberia from the US
Centre for Disease Control.
The minister, who also shed light on the
isolation tents, said as of the time he was briefing journalists, he had yet to
receive a response from the USCDC.
Chukwu explained that the isolation
tents would be used to cater for those who might be quarantined because of the
virus.
This, he said, had become necessary because
residents were raising objection to housing the patients close to them.
He put the cost of one isolation tent at about
N20m.
“We have a national emergency. Indeed, everyone
in the world is at risk. Nobody is immune. The Nigerian experience had alerted
the world because every country is connected by flights,” the minister said.
The minister also said the government had decided
to embark on mass recruitment of health personnel to strenghten the team
managing the outbreak in Lagos.
He expressed the hope that the Nigeria Medical
Association would soon call off its strike to join in the emergency service
since government had met almost all their demands.
Chukwu warned members of the public to stop
wearing gloves as a way of stopping the spread of the virus, saying such
practice could further compound the situation.
He however advised them to avoid handshake as
much as possible if they could afford it, describing the virus as both
contagious and infectious.
He said the virus could also be contracted
through the sharing of bedspreads, pillow cases and towels among other personal
effects with infected persons.
Chukwu also said a website, www.ebolaalert.org,
had been designed to offer information on the virus.
While disclosing the existence of a Twitter
handle, @ebolaalert, the minister added that help could also be reached through
a designated toll-free telephone line .
Ebola outbreak, national emergency –FG
The Federal Government also said on
Wednesday that the Ebola
outbreak had become a matter of national emergency.
The Minister of Information, Mr. Labaran
Maku; made government’s position known while also briefing
journalists on the outcome of the FEC meeting
Maku said the meeting was devoted to the measures
being taken by government to deal with the outbreak of the virus.
He recalled that the council had set up a
committee about two weeks ago to sensitise Nigerians to avoid unhealthy
practices.
Lagos to offer life insurance cover to
doctors, others
In Lagos, Idris told journalists that
the matron, who also contracted the EVD while participating in managing Sawyer
died at about 2.06pm on Tuesday.
The commissioner added, ‘In all, eight people
came in contact with Sawyer, comprising the dead matron, the doctor on
admission at the IDH, the four new victims and two other people, whose medical
test results are being awaited. Two of the four new victims are critically
ill.”
Idris said that 27 people who came
into contact with those on admission at the IDH had as of Tuesday
been traced.
When asked what government intended to do
concerning the traced secondary contacts, he replied, “ We cannot isolate these
27 secondary contacts because they are not showing symptoms yet, they are just
contacts.
“What we can do for now is to monitor them; take
their blood samples for testing and check their temperature daily. If any one
of them starts showing symptoms, then we will take him or her to
the hospital.”
He called on volunteers to help the state in
tracing more secondary contacts and in managing the established cases since the
situation was “a dire emergency.”
The commissioner said the state was
presently facing a shortage of health workers needed to attend to
those that had been infected and more of those that
might be isolated for monitoring.
He disclosed that the government
would offer life insurance cover to those
who volunteered to work with experts monitoring and testing suspected Ebola
cases.
Idris said, “We will provide life
insurance cover for any doctor, nurse and other experts that want to work with
isolated patients.
“We need more hands, because we have moved from
the stage of primary contacts to secondary contacts.We are tracing all the
people that had contacts not just with Sawyer, but those that had contacts with
the health workers and others that have died. We have identified 27 secondary
contacts already and we are tracing the addresses of others.
“ it is a tedious task, because we will also be
taking their blood samples for testing and we will be monitoring them.
“We are appealing to the doctors on strike to
resume work and set aside their grievances. This situation is a dire emergency
and our health professionals must recognise that.
“It will be morally unjustifiable for us to call
for help from the international community if our own experts and doctors are
not working.”
Idris added that the government would
evacuate tuberculosis patients at the IDH to another hospital to accommodate
more suspected and isolated Ebola cases.
He said, “ The TB patients at Mainland hospital were
protesting this(Wednesday) morning but we made them to understand that if they
stayed there, they might be exposed to Ebola virus .
“If we need to evacuate any hospital to ensure
that we contain this(Ebola) disease, we will do it. If we have to take suspected
cases to LASUTH, we will do it. If we need to take decisions that will
inconvenience some people but beneficial to the larger
population, we will do it because Ebola is a highly infectious disease.”
Religious groups advised to stop
gatherings
The commissioner also advised religious groups in
the state to stop all planned gatherings until a solution to the
Ebola outbreak was found.
Idris, who noted that such gatherings usually
involved people from outside the country, said the advice was in public
interest.
He said, “We are worried that a gathering of a
large group of people would not be the best at this period. Those churches and
Islamic associations that are planning large gatherings should stop for now.
“When we heard that there was a convention going
on at the Redemption Camp of the Redeemed Christian Church of God in Ogun
State, we went there to check.
“We were impressed with what was on the ground
because of the outbreak. There were sanitisers everywhere, doctors and other
health workers were on standby. The General Overseer(Pastor Enoch Adeboye) also
took time to educate people on the virus and what could be done to prevent it.
“We also went to Synagogue church when we heard
that they were planning a conference on Ebola. But the truth is that there was
nothing like that. The founder(TB Joshua) told us that he was planning to
travel out. He also promised to cooperate with the government.
“But the best thing is that any form of large
gathering must stop for now.”
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