Tag: Ebola

With the resurgence of Ebola virus in Liberia, Nigerians have again been placed on the red alert. In this interview, the Director, National Centre for Disease Control, Prof. Abdulsalam Nasidi spoke to VINCENT IKUOMOLA on Nigeria’s preparation to tackle any resurgence as well as some sundry issues surrounding the volunteer voyage to Sierra Leone and Liberia.

What is the country doing to check importation of Ebola virus following its resurgence in Liberia?

Usually, when you have such outbreaks and it subsides, you unwind your response mechanism, in case of resurgence. So, the moment you start seeing element of resurgence again, you start reactivating the system. So, that is what we discussed today (last Friday) in the Ministry with the Permanent Secretary.

So, what are the things being put in place now together with the states and other stakeholders?

For instance, all the things that the states need to do- all the health education materials that we need to spread across the country, we are brushing them up. We want to reactivate the functions of EOC, though not full activation, but at some rudimentary level operations. Then, we want to empower the Port Health Services to increase surveillance at all ports of entry where there is likelihood of entry, so they are now reactivating that again and so on and so forth. Of course, we are writing the government to say this is what is happening, we need special funding to buy and stock pile drugs, just in case and then reactivate centres where if you get  a case, you will go and isolate. So, we are giving ourselves the next one week to be fully reactivated.

What about public enlightenment?

We have public enlightenment that is ongoing. But it is all about money, but it is very expensive. Many people don’t know this. So, we are calling on the Ministry of Information to join us. The past administration was able to do it by actually putting three ministries- information, health and science and technology together. So, the Minister of Information helped by bringing NTA and others to do it for us free of charge. But all we do now is to do interview, talk and enlighten people.

Are you also thinking about taking the fight against the disease to where it is now, by sending volunteers back to Liberia to avoid further spread?

We are helping them. We have 16 Nigerian experts there, the Acting Head of AU intervention, Dr. Obasanya is there, our team is there. We are helping them to put so much things on ground. And they are the ones that are on top of what is happening now. Others have left it is only Nigerian people that are on ground now.

Is there any plan to send more volunteers to Liberia?

Well, it depends, taking more volunteers is money. The last time, we trained 500, we sent 200. So if we can quickly reactivate the remaining 300. The 200 are back in the country because Liberia has been declared Ebola free, but because we are not sure, we left 16 there. It is as if we knew, now with this resurgence, those 16 Nigerians are working on it.

After our last intervention in Ebola outbreak in the sub-region, a lot of controversies came up over payment of allowances to the volunteers and so on. Do you really have a list of allowances due to the volunteers because what they are saying is that they were not paid what they were entitled to?

Let me tell you something- there was an agreement between the Nigerian government and the African Union on what each of the party will do. The allowances were in categories- some to be taken care of by the African Union, some by us. So, African Union is taking care of their own, we are taking care of our own. So, in the process of paying them the allowances here and there and so forth, we realized that some of them are getting allowances from the African Union and also coming to us to get the allowances also. So, as I am talking to you now, we have people that have received double payments. So, we said we have to suspend their payments. But it is not true that they are supposed to be paid something and we have refused to pay them. And they are blaming African Union that the African Union is not paying them. African Union is facing problems- we have to face reality. AU was promised $500 million or something to do the job by World Bank and many other donors, but it didn’t get up to one tenth of that amount. So, it became a big problem for them (AU) to sustain this operation on the field. And we explained to these guys. We told them that look, AU is not cheating you. It is just that they did not have the cash now to fully pay everybody, but they are working hard. So, there was delay in paying them. But as I am talking to you now, Obasanya confirmed to me two days ago that they have finalized their last pay. I am sure they will soon start seeing alerts. They were there for six months, they got five months salaries, now there is records from the AU that some of them were overpaid, they have to even pay money back. The complaint against AU was that they were not paid in time and AU is even complaining that it is only Nigerians that were complaining. Others didn’t complain- Ethiopians were there, Kenyans were there and so on and so forth. Let’s control Ebola. If you controlled Ebola, then we can face ourselves.

But their complaint is that it is only the Nigerian contingent that was not well taken care of and were not paid the December and May salaries. How true is this?

Let me tell you- for all the contingents, the condition is that you must go back to your country before they release your money to you, so that people don’t escape. Now, I don’t know whether they didn’t do it for other countries, but Obasanya told me that, and why should they leave only Nigeria out? The problem with the initial payments of their allowances was due to the fact that many of them have problems with their domiciliary accounts. Before we left Nigeria, we said how do you want to be paid? They said, oh, they want to open domiciliary accounts, we said fantastic. But when they went to Liberia, Sierra Leone to transmit money became a problem. You know why? If the money was paid in the local currency, particularly in Sierra Leone into their accounts from AU, to pay in dollars becomes a problem. They are very strict in Sierra Leone, so the foreign exchange problems affected Nigerians particularly. But the Ethiopians, their money was not paid to them individually. It was paid to their government. Can you do that to Nigerians? They won’t agree. Nigerians want their money to be paid to them individually and we said yes, they should do it. The Nigerian government did not interfere in the payment.

Is it that there were no payments from the Nigerian government to the volunteers at all?

In Lagos, the Nigerian volunteers signed for some money.

They also complained that the $1000 that they were supposed to be paid before leaving the shores of this country was not paid to them.

I am hearing about this $1000 for the first time. Why should the Nigerian government pay them $1000? But I know that they collected some money from us in Lagos. What they were entitled to, we paid them. When we went to Lagos, they were supposed to be 250 invited to come for the training. We actually shortlisted 504 for the volunteer work,  the people they brought subsequently were about 300 plus that we contacted. So, by the time we were applying here for money, they said, no we cannot give you money for this, we can give you money for 220 or 250, I cannot remember the figure exactly, but that can be verified. So, we applied for that 250 to do the training in Lagos and all that. But remember, the money is not only for training- we have to pay the media that covered the programme, the live training, we have to pay for some other services, feeding, stationeries because it is a crash programme. AU didn’t pay for all that, but they don’t want to see that. We also paid for their tickets, we paid for their hotel accommodation in Lagos.

Do you have copies of the contract?

I will ask Mr. Obasanya to send me the copies of the contract. They signed the contracts and I have the picture where some of them were shaking me that tomorrow, they will appear at the airport, but we went to the airport, and we didn’t see them. I led them to Liberia and Sierra Leone, I didn’t have contract, I didn’t have insurance. I didn’t have anything. I risked my life to go there.

The twenty one days mandatory observatory for the volunteers, did they really observe that?

Let me tell you one thing. If somebody goes to the country where there is Ebola and worked on the Ebola area, on return to his country he must be isolated for 21 days. In my first recommendation, I said those coming from Liberia do not need it. They don’t need to be quarantined, but we shall monitor their temperature for 21 days. Those coming from Sierra Leone, some will need, some will not need- those who worked with Ebola patients will need to be completely isolated. But the AU told us that no, 14 days, instead of the 21 days when they left Liberia they have already been removed from contacts with any patient with Ebola. So, no Nigerian volunteer had contacts with Ebola patients 14 to 21 days before leaving. But that doesn’t mean that Nigeria should not do its own.

The government did not give penny. It was the transition period. The President said there was no money;  the SGF asked if we can we get Dangote? We got money from Dangote.

Let’s talk about the money budgeted for decontamination of First Consultants Hospital, Lagos

In fact, the meeting with the Lagos State Commissioner of Health was recorded. So, the first thing we told them was that there was a problem, let’s do something.  I invited the Nigeria Institute of Medical Research, the WHO and so on. All of them came only on the third day. So, that meeting at the Ministry of Health in Lagos showed that at the beginning, the Ministry did not even understand the problem to be as big as it turned out to be. So, with that, they asked us, what should we do now? So, we immediately need to seal the hospital, not close it totally because if you close it and you push out the patients that were there, some of them will escape. So, I said let us do what is called open quarantine and that the immediate thing is to start the contamination of the hospital, all the territory and you start decontaminating all health facilities in Lagos. For 21 days, I didn’t leave Lagos to prevent the escape of the virus to the Community. So, I now asked them in Abuja to apply for things that we need urgently. But there was no immediate money, except the NCDC money. So, they quickly apply and I think they requested for N28 million to quickly get the things to decontaminate the hospital and the other places.

A whopping N28 million to decontaminate one hospital, don’t you think that amount is too outrageous?

The places are listed, if you see the file, you will know that it is just a mischief. But the money didn’t come out after 21 days and when it came out, I was already in Abuja. So, they brought it to my attention. I said No, Lagos State has made this money available and they have decontaminated. As I am sitting here, I spent my own money to start the decontamination. I bought the materials; we started decontamination before Lagos State bought its own materials.

What about the issue of isolation tent?

Let me tell you, there are isolation tents in the world that can cost N1 billion, the type in America. Didn’t you hear about the one in Atlanta which they used about $200 million to put there? Anyway, I don’t have anything to do with isolation tents; the Permanent Secretary doesn’t have anything to do with isolation tents. A committee was set up to do it and luckily for me, I was not attending the meetings of the Committee. My own interest was what they should be for the NCDC complete the mobile laboratories and so on. The wisdom with which the then Minister and the Permanent Secretary handled Ebola in terms of getting us to do what we have to do at the right time, they deserve national honours and I can say it anytime, anywhere. Look, the ability to decide immediately- I risked my life, I was in Lagos, I called everybody to join me. That girl who died was making tea for me. Most of the people talking now will come to that hospital and they will be afraid to enter.