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Tag: Ebola

  • Obama seeks $6.2b to combat Ebola

    Obama seeks $6.2b to combat Ebola

    President Barack Obama on Wednesday asked the United States Congress to approve $6.18 billion in new emergency funds this fiscal year to combat Ebola where it is raging in West Africa, as well as in the U.S.

    According to documents provided to Congress, the administration wants lawmakers to provide $4.5 billion in funds for immediate response to the deadly disease and another $1.5 billion in contingency money.

    In a letter to House of Representatives Speaker, John Boehner, Obama said his top priority is to protect the health and safety of Americans and the request would cover that.

    “Over the longer term, my administration recognizes that the best way to prevent additional cases at home will be to contain and eliminate the epidemic at its source in Africa,” he said.

    Reuters says the request followed mid-term elections on Tuesday in which Republicans took control of the U.S Senate from Obama’s fellow Democrats and increased their majority in the House.

    Concern about the Ebola outbreak played a major part in election campaigning with Republicans portraying the outbreak as one of many areas in which Obama’s policies have fallen short.

    The Ebola outbreak has resulted in nearly 5,000 deaths in West Africa and nine cases treated in the U.S since August, including a Liberian who died on October 8 in Dallas.

    The Senate and House Appropriations Committees are assembling a $1 trillion spending package to fund a wide range of federal programs for the rest of the fiscal year ending on September 30. The Ebola request would be folded into that bill, to be debated by December 11, when existing government funds run out.

  • Ebola: Lagos allays fears of tourists, investors

    Ebola: Lagos allays fears of tourists, investors

    The government of Lagos State  has assured tourists and investors not to fear to do business in the state, saying it has the capacity to combat any infectious disease, including the Ebola Virus Disease.

    Governor Babatunde Fashola gave the assurance yesterday at a programme, tagged “Lagos Welcomes Visitors”, organised by the Ministry of Tourism in conjunction with the Ministry of Health.

    The governor, who was represented by Deputy Governor Mrs. Adejoke Orelope-Adefulire, said before the importation of Ebola into the city, the state had put in place measures that helped contain the virus.

    “Despite that we did not expect Ebola in our state, we rose to the occasion and ensured that the disease was stamped out of the state and indeed Nigeria.

    “Lagos, the nation’s economic nerve centre and the most populous state, is aware of the importance of capacity building.

    “We have over the years built our capacity to attend to any emergency knowing that Lagos belongs to all of us because we are conscious of the social contract we had with the people, just as we are committed to good governance.

    “The state more than ever before is safe and secure for visitors and tourists because it has always been our objective to make Lagos a city where all can live and work.”

    Speaking on the impact of EVD on the hospitality industry, the General Manager, Wheatbaker Hotel, Simon Grinrod, said though no hotel in the state recorded a case or a suspected case, the outbreak made them improve on their hygiene.

    Grinrod said: “If you look at the impact of the last three months on our sector, it has been significant. This is because international corporate drivers are not about hotels.

    “It is about air travels; it is about suppliers to the hotels in terms of fresh fruits and vegetables and all manners of materials.

    “It is about car hire companies, it is about restaurants which are visited by international visitors. All sectors were affected by the arrival of this terrible disease.

    “What we did during the outbreak was that we refocused on our local clients because we know that our local visitors are as important as our international visitors because when the days were dark, they were with us. We also took a lot of precautionary methods and improved on our hygiene.

    “What we want our clients both local and international to know is that we have not relaxed on our guards and we would continue to work with the government and other stakeholders to ensure that we continue to maintain greater level of hygiene.”

  • Ebola stalls Dangote Cement’s expansion in Sierra Leone

    Ebola stalls Dangote Cement’s expansion in Sierra Leone

    Nigeria’s largest company and the continent’s biggest producer of the building material, Dangote Cement Plc (DANGCEM),  said it is delaying a planned expansion in Sierra Leone due to the Ebola outbreak.

    “Sierra Leone was scheduled to start this month, but we had to put the project on hold. When the crisis abates then we’ll immediately start moving ahead,” its Chief Executive Officer, Devakumar Edwin said on a conference call yesterday.

    Companies have slowed investment in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia, the three countries affected by the Ebola outbreak estimated to have killed more than 5,000 people in the sub-region. Dangote Cement’s parent company, Dangote Industries Limited postponed a visiting day for investors in, Lagos, in September amid Ebola fears. Nigeria was declared Ebola-free last month by the World Health Organisation (WO).

    Dangote Cement, controlled by billionaire Chairman Aliko Dangote, expects to have a cement-production capacity of 29 million metric tons in Nigeria by year end. The company plans to expand in 13 other countries on the continent, bringing total capacity to as much as 60 million metric tons by 2016.

    Operations in Cameroon, Senegal and Zambia are set to  begin producing this year, while a plant in Ethiopia will start getting commissioned next month, Edwin said.

    Persistent fuel disruptions to Dangote’s Nigerian plants are expected to ease after gas-supply authorities assured the company they don’t anticipate major disruption within the next six months, according to Edwin. They said supply would come from producers including Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSA) and Exxon Mobil Corp., he said.

    Nigeria sale volumes were down one per cent to 9.8 million tons in the nine months through September, the company said Oct. 31.

    Its group profit for the period fell 10 per cent to N140.5 billion ($844 million) even as revenue climbed 7.3 per cent to N310.2 billion.

    “The gas-supply was a major constraining factor,” Edwin said. The authorities “have reviewed the pipeline integrity, the condition of the gas treatment stations, including the major scheduled maintenance which they have undertaken in the recent past.”

    Dangote Cement’s share price has declined 4.6 per cent this year to N208.89, compared with the 13 per cent drop of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) All-Share Index.

  • Ebola: AU seeks fund from African billionaires

    Ebola: AU seeks fund from African billionaires

    The African Union (AU) has said it is seeking funding from some of the continent’s richest people, including Nigeria’s Aliko Dangote, to pay volunteer doctors and nurses fighting the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) in West Africa.

    The continental bloc is seeking to raise $35 million in the first round and, eventually, as much as $100 million for the Business-to-Rescue Fund, said George Sibotshiwe, Executive Director, African Democratic Institution, which is coordinating a November 8 meeting in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, to encourage business people to donate.

    “A campaign to ask for contributions from “citizens” will follow,” he said.

    Dangote, the chairman of Dangote Group in Nigeria, and Patrice Motsepe, chairman of Johannesburg-based African Rainbow Minerals Ltd. (ARI) are expected to attend the meeting, the  AU said in an e-mail statement.

    According to AU, Strive  Masiyiwa, chairman of Econet Wireless International, Safaricom Ltd. of Kenya Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Bob Collymore, South Africa’s MTN Group CEO Sifiso Dabengwa and CEO of Standard Bank Group Ltd. Sim Tshabalala also plan to join.

    Among wealthy businessmen already committing money to curb Ebola are Microsoft co-founders Paul Allen and Bill Gates and Facebook Inc. CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

    The world’s largest Ebola outbreak has killed almost 5,000 people in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone since December. AU member states have pledged to send at least 2,000 health workers to the three West African nations.

    The World Bank estimated that about 5,000 international medical, training and support personnel are needed in the coming months to respond to the outbreak, including as many as 1,000 foreign-health workers to treat patients. More than 200 local doctors and nurses have died since December from the virus, leaving the already-crippled health systems even weaker.

  • Jonathan to attend ECOWAS summit on Ebola

    Jonathan to attend ECOWAS summit on Ebola

    President Goodluck Jonathan will on Thursday join other leaders of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in Accra, Ghana, for an Emergency Summit on the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) which is still ravaging Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

    A statement issued by the President’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Dr. Reuben Abati, said the emergency summit will also be attended by representatives of the United Nations and the World Health Organisation.

    The meeting, it said, will seek greater international support and collaboration for the containment of the Ebola outbreak.

    Jonathan will be accompanied to the summit by the Supervising Minister of Health, Dr. Khaliru Alhassan and the Director of the National Centre for Disease Control, Dr. Abdulsalami Nasidi.

    The President is expected to avail the gathering of the benefit of Nigeria’s successful containment of the virus after it entered the country in July this year through a traveller from Liberia.

    He will return to Abuja at the conclusion of the one-day summit.

  • Ebola: Cleric urges Nigeria to play leadership role

    Ebola: Cleric urges Nigeria to play leadership role

    The Nigerian government has been advised to play leadership role as the most populous African nation by working conscientiously with the United States of America to develop the vaccine for Ebola Virus Disease, (EVD), and contribute towards raising the $600 million for
    the project.

    Prophet (Dr.) Samson Ayorinde, the president and founder of the World Evangelism Bible Church, (WEBIC) Inc. and Chairman of Faith Television, London, gave this advice recently while speaking on the state of the nation.

    “I urge the Nigerian government to work with the United States of America, to develop the vaccine for the dreaded disease ravaging some parts of West Africa, as soon as possible and I
    also urge them to play a leadership role in Africa, by partaking in raising the funds for the development of the vaccine,” he said.

    Ayorinde believed Nigeria has earned a place of pride in the world, in view of the recent declaration by the World Health Organisation, (WHO), as an Ebola-free nation due to the country’s “swift” containment of the disease.

    “The government’s pro-active approach in the containment of the disease is highly commendable. It shows we are ready to live up to our responsibility when the need arises,” he said.

    According to him, there is a cause for caution and intensive prayer on the 2015 general elections as politicians “juggling for power” would explore all options in their quest for electoral victory.

    “That time of battle is usually the time that things juggle up. We can only minimize the impact. The Boko Haram attacks, as it gets to the election, will become more heavier, as the insurgency group would believe the incessant attacks would force Jonathan from contesting in the presidential election; and the counter attacks to get them under control, will also become more heavier. In the places where these happen, they will declare a State of Emergency,” he posited.

    According to him, Jonathan has made an appreciable effort to move the nation forward since he came into power. “Considering when he took over power and how he took over power, he has not done badly. He could do better. There is much more balancing of power now and more distribution of resources. It’s like a pendulum on a lever. First, power was totally in the North for so many years, while in the South South, there was nothing. So when the South South came on board, the Northern side came down. Now, there is a juggle. At a stage, there will be equilibrium. What we are having now is that juggle,” he reasoned.

    He however advised him to appoint good technocrats who would assist him in moving the nation forward.

    Ayorinde, whose church has 40 branches in Lagos State, apart from several other branches in different parts of the world, said his ministry has to its credit a myriad of miracles in its 19 years of existence.

    In a unique way to motivate the Nigerian youth, he recently launched the Under 14 Kiddies’ Club where 36 football teams emerged in Lagos and also organized a special event, “WEBIC Shining Stars” with the theme: SWAG-Saved with Amazing Grace- to commemorate Nigeria’s 54th independence anniversary.

    The event was held at the church’s headquarters in Ojota, Lagos and it was attended by a multitude of youths from different branches of the church, with the veteran footballer, Chief Segun Odegbami, as the special guest speaker.

     

  • Ebola: Nigeria donates N50m drugs to Sierra Leone

    Ebola: Nigeria donates N50m drugs to Sierra Leone

    Nigeria has donated drugs and supplies to the tune of N50 million to assist Sierra Leone in its fight against the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD).

    This is apart from the $3.5million donated by President Goodluck Jonathan towards curtailingthe Ebola scourge in the sub region.

    The supervising Minister of Health, Dr. Khaliru Alhassan, made the disclosure when he addressed journalists during the 64th Session of the World Health Organization’s Regional Committee for Africa meeting, holding in Cotonou, Republic of Benin from November 3 to 7.

    According to a statement issued by Mrs. Ayo Adesugba, Director Press and Public Relations, Ministry of Health, Alhassan informed the journalists  “that at the request of the Government of Sierra Leone, Nigeria made a donation of drugs and supplies to the tune of N50 million.”

    He also announced that Nigeria has already mobilized and trained over 600 health workers as volunteers to support the containment effort in affected countries within the region under the leadership of ECOWAS.

    The minister also told the journalists that Nigeria was willing to share its experiences and offer support to other countries in terms of building necessary capacity, management of information and actual case management in their efforts to contain the EVD.

    Speaking on the country’s experience, Alhassan ascribed Nigeria’s success in containing the virus to responsive governance driven by appropriate political will, a clear leadership role, and strong multi-sectoral teamwork.

     

  • Australia to step up Ebola fight in Africa

    Australia to step up Ebola fight in Africa

    Australia will fund an Ebola treatment clinic in Sierra Leone, Prime Minister Tony Abbott said on Wednesday, responding to pressure from the United States and others to do more to tackle the deadly outbreak at its West African source.

    Australia last week became the first developed nation to issue a blanket ban on visas from the three most Ebola-affected countries – Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia – sparking widespread criticism.

    Australia will provide A$20 million ($17.5 million) to staff a 100-bed treatment centre that will be built by Britain and run by Aspen Medical, a private Australian company, Reuters reports.

    “We anticipate about 240 staff required to do the job,” Abbott told reporters in Sydney. “Most of them will be locally engaged. Some will be international and it’s quite possible, even likely, that some will be Australian.”

    Australia had already committed around A$18 million to fight the outbreak of the virus, but had been called on by U.S President Barack Obama, opposition lawmakers and medical bodies such as Doctors Without Borders to do more.

    “There are many Australians who wish to volunteer to use their skills, committed and capable doctors and nurses who wish to help in the fight against Ebola,” opposition leader Bill Shorten.

    “However, we believe that the government, whilst this is a welcome, overdue step, has not gone as far as it should to help tackle the scourge at the source.”

    Oxfam also welcomed the move and urged the government to consider deploying the Australian military to help with logistics and other support.

  • Thousands break Ebola quarantine to find food in S’Leone

    Thousands break Ebola quarantine to find food in S’Leone

    Thousands of people in Sierra Leone are being forced to violate Ebola quarantines to find food because deliveries are not reaching them, aid agencies said.

    Large swaths of the West African country have been sealed off to prevent the spread of Ebola, and within those areas many people have been ordered to stay in their homes. The government, with help from the U.N.’s World Food Program, is tasked with delivering food and other services to those people. But there are many “nooks and crannies” in the country that are being missed, Jeanne Kamara, Christian Aid’s Sierra Leone representative, said Tuesday.

    The Ebola outbreak in West Africa has killed nearly 5,000 people and authorities have gone to extreme lengths to bring it under control, like the quarantines in Sierra Leone. The country said Tuesday that it would keep a state of emergency, which includes restrictions on large gatherings, in place for a full year.

    Similar measures have also been used in Liberia and Guinea, the two other countries hardest hit by the epidemic.

    While public health authorities have said such measures may be necessary to bring under control an Ebola outbreak unlike any other, the Disasters Emergency Committee, an umbrella organization for aid organizations, warned on Monday that they were cutting off food to thousands of people.

    “The quarantine of Kenema, the third largest town in Sierra Leone, is having a devastating impact on trade – travel is restricted so trucks carrying food cannot freely drive around,” the committee said in a statement. “Food is becoming scarce, which has led to prices increasing beyond the reach of ordinary people.”

    Because services are not reaching them, people who are being monitored for signs of Ebola — and should be staying at home — are venturing out to markets to look for food, potentially contaminating many others, said Kamara.

    When houses are put under quarantine, teams are supposed to go to them to list all their needs, she said: How many people are living there? Are there pregnant women or sick people with special needs? But Kamara said that with the infections still increasing quickly, it was difficult for the government to keep up with the number of people being monitored for the disease.

    “The number is just rising exponentially,” she said. “The speed with which we have to have such a robust system of planning and coordination” is too fast.

    In October, the World Food Program fed more than 450,000 people in Sierra Leone, including people who are under quarantine or being treated for Ebola, said Alexis Masciarelli, a spokesman for the agency in Dakar, Senegal. The distribution of food has been difficult, he said, since it has required bringing food to remote areas by poor roads. Pick-up trucks have driven around some communities to do door-to-door handouts.

    He acknowledged that getting good information about where people need help is difficult, but he said WFP asks smaller organizations, with deep connections to the communities, to help them keep track of a fast-moving situation.

     

  • Expert advises Fed Govt on Ebola

    The Chairman of Records and Information Management Foundation (RIMA) Lagos, Dr. Oyedokun Oyewole has advised the Federal Ministry of Information to continue the aggressive sensitisation of the public on the deadly Ebola virus disease.

    He also urged the Federal Government not to relent on the awareness campaign against the deadly virus until there is remedy for it.

    Oyewole, who spoke at a press conference to mark the 10th anniversary of RIMA Foundation in Lagos, said the Federal Government should not stop sensitising Nigerian on healthy lifestyle so as to avoid contracting the virus.

    He said information is key in fighting such deadly virus, even as he added that he has written many proposals to Federal Ministry of Information on how to sensitise Nigerians about the dreaded disease. Dr Oyewole maintained that information plays key role in ensuring development in the economic, health and other sectors.

    “We need information management in our society. Unfortunately, no institution is offering that course in any of Nigerian universities, but we are ready to partner with the Federal Ministry of Information in order to sensitise the public on the policies of government.

    “We have organised a conference to discuss the impact of information management on the Ebola epidemic in Nigeria as part of our efforts to sensitise the public on the disease. Many people, especially in the rural areas, are still in doubt of the deadly virus. The reality of the disease we can communicate to them in their respective languages.

    Speaking on lack of proper information in the society, Oyewole said many people still believe the Freedom of Information Bill was meant for the press alone, adding that there is a need to make them understand why it is important for every Nigerians.

    “Another area where we want the Federal Ministry of Information to partner with us is the general information management. Some people have still not understood the benefit of the Freedom of Information Bill which is very important for every Nigerians.

    “We must manage our information machinery effectively. We need to understand the implications of lack of information and ensure our people rise against ignorance,” he said.