The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Ebola

  • AfDB approves $60m in response to Ebola outbreak

    AfDB approves $60m in response to Ebola outbreak

    African Development Bank (AfDB) has approved additional $60 million grant investment for immediate implementation to help strengthen West Africa’s public health systems in response to the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) crisis.

    In a statement in Abuja yesterday, the bank said the grant would support West Africa’s EVD outbreak response plan from August to December.

    “This grant is part of a $210-million package, including $15 million in loans and grants as well as four emergency assistance grants of $1 million to each of the four countries affected by Ebola.

    “The $60 million grant is awarded to the World Health Organisation (WHO) sub-regional Ebola Outbreak Coordinating Centre located in Conakry, Guinea, given their extensive experience with global epidemics.

    “The project will support ongoing efforts to reduce morbidity, mortality from Ebola and help break the chain of transmission of the disease by strengthening sub-regional public health systems,” it said.

    The statement said the bank’s assistance would support overall strengthening of public health systems in West Africa to facilitate early detection and response to epidemics and pandemic prone diseases.

    It said the proposed project critically was aimed at responding to the specific needs identified by the expert community in response to the Category 3 world emergency epidemic.

    The statement said the bank’s project would be coordinated by the WHO sub-regional Ebola Outbreak Coordinating Centre in Conakry along with the West African Health Organisation (WAHO).

    It said that a joint memorandum for intervention practices and management procedures would be signed between the bank, WHO and WAHO regional organisation representing the governments of West Africa.

    The countries are Guinea, Côte d’Ivoire, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea Bissau, Ghana, Niger, Nigeria, Togo, Benin, Mali, Senegal and The Gambia.

    It said that the Ebola crisis could have been prevented if investments were directed toward building stronger health systems and described the crisis as the most complicated health crisis in West Africa.

    The AfDB President, Dr Donald Kaberuka, said it was not simply dealing with a health problem but the breakdown of entire health systems in the affected countries.

    It said AfDB’s Chief Medical Officer, Dr  Nelly Iteba, said the bank had taken adequate measures to protect its staff.

    Iteba said EVD could be managed with strict adherence to standard infection control practices, basic medical equipment and necessary medication.

    “For instance, availability of sterilisation equipment, intravenous fluids, blood transfusions, antibiotics, ventilators, powerful vasoactive medications can improve patient care and save lives.

    “Also, skilled health professionals equipped with personal protective equipment and availability of modern diagnostic equipment can make all the difference in containing the spread of EVD,” it said.

  • Ebola: Let us pray

    Ebola: Let us pray

    The topical issue that has continued to dominate world headlines is Ebola. The killer instinct of the virus is no longer news; what is news, however, are the various preventive measures now being put in place everywhere to prevent the spread of the highly contagious virus. These preventive measures, ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous, are as many as they vary from country to country. In Nigeria, the government has been battling to persuade the people from adopting an unorthodox approach that claims that adding salt to warm water to bathe, and drinking warm water salt therapy can prevent Ebola Virus Disease (EVD). That message had gone viral in the social media and through unsolicited text messages before the government sprung into action. Even at that, several people who had taken that route landed in the hospital while a few others were not so lucky. They met their untimely death in the process. Talk of dying before the arrival of death itself.

    Last week, this column wrote on Africa’s destiny with pandemics. The column stated that the current Ebola’s spread in four West African countries – Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Nigeria – “is a reminder of the vast development needs that persist in some of the world’s poorest countries”. It is, therefore, not too funny to read what Decontee Sawyer, wife of the late Patrick Sawyer, the man who brought EVD into Nigeria, recently told a magazine in Liberia. Decontee said her husband’s decision to travel from Liberia to Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, was a desperate search for a better health-care system. She said that Sawyer had no trust in the health-care system in Liberia and had possibly headed to Nigeria with the hope of receiving better treatment for his ailment. Many Nigerians, and even Liberians, had condemned Sawyer for travelling to Nigeria despite knowing that he was infected with the Ebola virus before embarking on the trip. Some Nigerians on social media even went as far as describing him as a “biological terrorist” who came into the country deliberately to spread the disease.

    Decontee’s defence of her husband notwithstanding, what is clear is that at the time he made the journey to Nigeria, Sawyer knew his health status quite well before he sneaked into Nigeria through Lome, the Togolese capital. Had he done his homework well, the late Sawyer would have known that escaping from Liberia to Nigeria was like jumping from frying pan to fire. The fire finally consumed him when he was eventually cremated after he died of the Ebola disease. His cremation was done in line with the prescription of the World Health Organisation, WHO, for the safe disposal of victims of Ebola disease to forestall further spread of the disease by the corpses of the victims. WHO had said that 60 percent or more of those affected by the disease contracted it from the corpses of the victims before or during burial rites.

    If we are all now blaming Sawyer for importing the disease to Nigeria willingly or unwillingly, what can we say about the nurse who had primary contact with the late Sawyer and was placed under observation but who equally sneaked out from Lagos and headed for Enugu where a few people have now been placed under observation? What this means is that Lagos is not the only state in Nigeria that has so far been hit by the deadly EVD; Enugu has joined the fray. After the Federal Executive Council meeting in Abuja last Wednesday, Labaran Maku, the Minister of Information, told State House correspondents that Enugu came into the picture because one of the nurses that treated the American-Liberian, Patrick Sawyer, shunned medical advice and travelled to the city.

    Thank God that the medical team has been able to trace all those who came into contact with the nurse, including her husband, and they are now being quarantined in Enugu. The nurse has done to Enugu what Patrick Sawyer did to Lagos that has now put Nigeria in the infamous map of Ebola-ravaged countries. One would have expected those keeping vigil on all these contacts to put a water-tight cordon on such people, but Nigerians or Africans, being what we are, we have high proclivity to disobey orders. If the nurse who has transported this virus to Enugu survives, what will the system do to her even if one or two others who contracted the virus from her throw in the towel tomorrow?

    The lacklustre manner in which the case of the nurse has been handled is a signpost of the unserious manner we handle sensitive issues in this country and in Africa. The other day a national newspaper displayed the photograph of medical personnel who look more like nurses wearing protective health gears at the National Hospital in Abuja on its front page. The picture was, perhaps, to illustrate that the country was ready to combat the Ebola virus headlong. Ironically, that message was lost when I discovered that one of the ladies was full of laughter as if she was modelling for a Nollywood extravaganza as the photographer clicked away. That is the way we are. Now, tell me, what was funny to the nurse that she so much got captivated with laughter in a situation that she could have complimented with a sober look?

    More disturbing, is the recent report that no fewer than 17 patients infected with Ebola were unaccounted for after they fled an armed raid on a quarantine centre on the outskirts of Monrovia, the Liberian capital, by men who claimed the epidemic was a fiction. Reports say, the attackers, mostly young men armed with clubs, shouted that President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf “is broke” and “there’s no Ebola” in Liberia as they broke into the facility. The facility was believed to be housing 29 patients who “had all tested positive for Ebola” and were receiving preliminary treatment before being taken to hospital. Out of the 29 patients, 17 reportedly fled in the aftermath of the assault. Another nine died a few days after, while three others were allegedly taken away by force by their relatives from the centre. Residents had opposed the creation of the centre, set up by health authorities in part of the city considered an epicentre of the Ebola outbreak in the Liberian capital. Again, that is the way we are in Africa. It is a shame.

    The Ebola outbreak, the worst since the virus first appeared in 1976, has claimed 1,145 lives in five months, according to the United Nations World Health Organisation’s latest figures as of August 13: 413 in Liberia, 380 in Guinea, 348 in Sierra Leone and four in Nigeria. With the appalling health care delivery system in this country and Africa as a whole, I believe we should all go down on our knees to pray fervently to God to save us from this killer virus. This is because in the event of a severe outbreak of the disease, (God forbid), many heads will roll especially now that they are saying that the trial vaccine is out of stock.

    Mind you, this virus has been ravaging some parts of Africa since 1976 – 38 years ago – and it never occurred to anybody to find a lasting cure for the terrible disease. Recall that this current one broke out more than six months ago and it was only last week that WHO deemed it fit to hold an emergency session after more than a thousand souls had been lost. Call it different strokes for different folks. If it had happened in any of the developed countries, would the world have waited this long? The same thing happened many years ago during the Rwanda genocide. The world stood akimbo as two brothers, the Hutus and Tutsis, engaged one another in a bloody fratricidal war that claimed thousands of lives.

    Anyway, this Ebola thing is a wake-up call on Africans and the Blacks in the Diaspora to wake up from self-induced stupor, gird their loins and get their bearings right. If not, we will continue to be a laughing stock in the world arena. May God help us!

  • ‘Our Girls’; toilets, running water, Ebola and typhoid

    ‘Our Girls’; toilets, running water, Ebola and typhoid

    Our Girls’ are still missing since April 15. No word about apparently ‘secret’ local efforts but there is the reported release of 85 Nigerians by Chadian troops. Hurray!

    Yes, Ebola is the rage of the day. Bloody epidemics always take centre stage. Happily hand washing being touted as a preventive measure also helps in a myriad other infections, especially typhoid. No one, not one of you readers or politicians with all the billions in Nigeria cares to complain that the majority of Nigeria’s children still go to schools and universities with no running water and no toilets or unusable toilets. They are forced to urinate beside or behind their own classrooms just like the majority of their teachers, male and female. Most youths in schools throw their faecal matter in black plastic bags into the bush or even into neighbouring compounds – a New Nigerian Olympic Sport called ‘Shot-put’ after the original ‘shot-put’ of my good old 1960s school days when a grapefruit sized black metal heavy ball was thrown across a field –a sport at which the late murdered Funso Williams was a Grier Cup Champion in St Gregory’s College. May God rest his generous soul even as we pray that his murderers will have no rest until they are caught and confess.

    We in Africa accept massive numbers of mother and child deaths at delivery and other deaths from deadly deficient government services as ‘normal’ and ‘Acts of God’. They are not. They are a form of government sponsored medical murder just as Ebola is medical murder because wrong containment practices were initiated by government when the disease was first diagnosed properly. Indeed Ebola has highlighted the pathetic place of barrier, sanitation and other health facilities. Do the victims have first class medical treatment and Intensive Care Unit facilities?

    Does NEMA, National Emergency Management Agency, not have gloves, masks, preventive suits and boots in large quantities? Why do all government hospitals not have suits ready? Horrifyingly today, as for many years, in many government hospitals and clinics, the patient on arrival is expected to first ‘buy or bring’ gloves, mask, syringes and needles for the hospital to use. Shameful. When I was a doctor and consultant, our medical pockets bulged with these ‘immediate life-savers’ to bring immediate care to patients. Now a doctor must wait sometimes for hours for relations to purchase these items before intervening thus destroying morale and ‘Removing the Urgency from Emergency’. The patients too often die in the interval.

    Education and medical services including facilities are closely related in failure. Recall the pathetic situation in education especially in public schools. Only 31% pass rate of five credits including Maths and English in 1.8million WAEC students confirming a government failure of 69%. Many of the passes were probably in ‘private sector schools’ the same ones that governments in states and LGAs overtax and harass daily. The pass rate in government schools is probably nearer 20% with that of private schools being probably nearer 60-80%. Government has failed, not the students. Government should ‘thank God’ for private schools boosting its abysmal results. Should the education system nationwide not suspend or sack all its Ministry supervisory staff and all its ‘’16,000+’’ teachers for such an abysmal result which is getting worse in spite of whatever billions of naira boasts by states, UBE and other mega-education bodies and the federal ministry? If doctors had a successful diagnosis, treatment delivery or surgery recovery rate of 31%, they would have been burnt at the stake of public opinion. As treatment for the Government-Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) face off, I recommend a cooling down on both sides. This can best be achieved by a call off or suspension of the strike by the NMA to allow government use a Presidential suspension of the suspension of the Residency Training Programme and Presidential reinstatement of the l6,000 doctors of the National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD). Nobody wants to be or should be cheated by a government that chooses to pay its politicians salaries outlandish salaries and perks, SAPing the nation and insulting hardworking professionals. Residency is not classroom school lessons; it is hard work, heavy responsibility and years of on-the-job training. Residency was not invented in Nigeria. It is the standard way of training doctors. Anyone who has questions should come and train instead of sitting on the fence and criticising. SANS get SANed by doing their job in court, getting full pay, but sit no other examinations. Specialisation in the medical profession is tightly controlled by the number of vacancies and the pass rate for different examinations is as low as 10% and as high as 50% for a married man or woman 25-40years old. Disgracefully, even newly graduated medical doctors roam the streets for one or two years before being trained for full registration. Maybe Nigeria will next abolish House jobs? Are we not pariah enough in the world without disgracing further our post-graduate training programmes by suspensions which even if overturned tomorrow have already been noted worldwide by medical associations with consequent dismissal of Nigerian medical education and services as third rate? Meanwhile foreign medical tourism will increase.

    Questions about Ebola are being asked daily. Why were the initial contacts not isolated individually in separate rooms to protect them from each other and their families instead of this growing circle, a lethal circus of danger to themselves and fellow Nigerians? The idea of sending them home for monitoring was a huge breach of procedure

  • Adadevoh: Tributes galore for the ‘True heroine’

    Adadevoh: Tributes galore for the ‘True heroine’

    Facebook friends of Kwami Adadevoh, a cousin of Late Dr Ameyo Adadevoh who died on Tuesday of Ebola infection have been paying tributes to the consultant physician of First Consultant Hospital, Lagos.

    Kwami changed his Facebook profile picture to that of the Dr Adadevoh hours after she was confirmed dead by Health Minister, Professor Oyebuchi Chukwu.

    In his response to the condolence messages and tributes Kwami wrote: ” Thank you all for your kind words. May The Lord bless us all and hopefully her sacrifice would not be in vain”

    Some of the tributes includes

    So sorry to hear of your loss. May her soul rest in perfect peace
    Joke Bada Savage

    She was a true heroine!Her work wasn’t in vain and she conquered this evil scourge, because she was brave to defy it!God comfort you and your family!amen.
    Ndidi Deedee Ejoh

    Rest in Peace my darling Ameyo, till we meet to part no more. Thank you for putting yourself forward for Nigeria…. We owe you our very lives! Love you, always will. Good night xxx
    Susan Kofo Osei -Baidoo

    Rest in peace you heroine! May God comfort your family my dear brother.
    Kathleen Ndongmo

    No greater love, than a woman lay down her life for her friends.
    Jae Badd

  • How UCH,Oyo govt are tackling Ebola

    How UCH,Oyo govt are tackling Ebola

    Months before Patrick Sawyer imported Ebola into Nigeria from Liberia, Nigeria’s premier tertiary health facility, the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan has made adequate preparation to contain any outbreak of the deadly disease. BISI OLADELE reports on what the hospital and the Oyo State government are doing to fight EVD

    Should preparation and precautions be enough to prevent and curtail the spread of the deadly Ebola virus, then efforts by the authorities of the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan and the Oyo State government would offer total peace to those living in fear of the disease in the State.

    The hospital, leveraging on the opportunity of doctors’ strike which prevents patients from patronizing the hospital since six weeks ago, has since April, instructed its staff to take precautionary measures against the possible outbreak of the disease.

    Reason? Its committee on Emergency Response to Outbreak of Diseases reported a case of Acute Viral Haemorrhagic Fever in April.

    According to the Head, Emergency Department of the hospital, Mr Wale Olatunde, there was a case of Acute Haemorrhagic Fever in April, suggesting a possible outbreak of one or all of three diseases namely Ebola, Dengue and Lassa fever.

    Olatunde, who is also a member of the committee, disclosed that they immediately alerted the Management of the hospital, which in turn, put all members of staff on red alert to prevent them from contracting any of the diseases either from patients or from their various local communities.

    Today, the UCH has built an Ebola Isolation Centre with equipment to handle possible victims of the virus, provided its staff with Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), runs media campaign on outbreak of Ebola and also restrict access to all its medical departments as precautionary measures.

    In an interview with The Nation, Mr Olatunde said: “Unfortunately, we have this sudden condition which has thrown up a lot of challenges into the hospital system.

    “At the UCH, being the foremost teaching hospital in the country, we were never caught unawares. The hospital has a committee called UCH Emergency Response to Outbreak of Diseases put in place in 2011 by the Chief Medical Director (CMD), Prof. Temitope Alonge.

    “One of the oversight functions is to regularly assess outbreak and notify appropriately the outbreak of any communicable disease. The committee and the hospital were fully involved in the outbreak of cholera in Oyo State in 2012.

    “We were able to contain it then. We notified the government as soon as we started receiving patients on cholera. We asked them to do contact tracing and disinfection of affected areas.

    We acted better in 2013 when it broke out in Egbeda axis. We were able to quickly curtail it. Members are drawn from every segment of the hospital. Once you notice any of these communicable diseases, we notify the committee which will swing into action.

    “The same happened last year when we had suspected cases of meningitis and Lassa fever.”

    Specifically, on Ebola outbreak, he said: “This year, the first suspected case was Acute Viral Haemorrhagic Fever in April. Infections that present as such include Lassa, Dengue and Ebola. Incidentally, presenting symptoms are similar to those of malaria fever, typhoid fever and upper respiratory tracts infection which make the diagnosis very difficult.

    “So as early as April, we started suspecting and we notified appropriate authorities but because we didn’t have a conclusive diagnostic test, we couldn’t come out. But appropriate precautionary measures universally acceptable were employed. They include isolation of suspected patients and use of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) by workers.

    “Four Lassa cases were confirmed from the laboratory and one Dengue. It was when we were working on this that Patrick Sawyer came into Nigeria. We might have had a reported case of Ebola but for the doctors’ strike.

    Preventive Measures

    “As early as April, the Management of the hospital, based on the report of the committee, alerted all staff to be on red alert. There is no fatality among us because we were well prepared for it.

    “When Ebola became an epidemic, the Management printed fliers sensitizing the public to quickly identify report and put measures in place to curtail the spread of the disease. In addition, Management started in- house training for the staff. We also had a ground round on August 8. We also have road shows and jingles on radio and TV.

    “In addition to that, the Management embarked on immediate construction of Ebola Isolation Centre near the main entrance.

    “We are also following the World Health Organization (WHO) recommendation in management of cases like this. There are categories A, B and C. Only those confirmed as positive will go to isolation centre.

    “We now use Infrared thermometer in place of the old clinical thermometer. With this, all patients coming to the hospital will be screened for fever without any personal contact. Those cleared would be brought into the hospital and those with index or suspicion will be isolated. Those confirmed will be transferred to the Isolation Centre.

    “We also have reduced entry to every department for the safety of patients and staff. This will continue until the epidemic is over as a way of curtailing its spread.

    “We are expecting more PPE from the government.”

    Items to be used for the prevention and treatment of Ebola and related ailments stocked by the hospital include N95 Masks, booths, gowns, gloves, goggles, sterile alcohol prep pads, gauze dressing, sutures and sutures removal, breathing circuits and hand towels.

    “When kitted, you are like an Eskimo, prevented from spillages.” Mr Olatunde said.

    The equipment was donated by the Minister of State for Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Jumoke Akinjide

    On its part, the Oyo State government has assured members of the public on steps taken so far over the last three months to ensure the prevention of an Ebola disease outbreak in the state.

    The Commissioner for Health, Dr Muyiwa Gbadegesin said: “In all these, the Ministry of Health is working closely with the Federal Ministry of Health, World Health Organization and Ministry of Health of our neighboring States to carry out the following: All local government areas Disease Surveillance and Notification Officers have been alerted and sensitized to promptly respond to the outbreak, in addition a sensitization programme has been organized for the Disease Surveillance and Notification Officers in all the 33 LGAs in the State.

    “Public enlightenment highlighting how to prevent Ebola Virus Disease, its causes, mode of transmissions and steps to be taken in case of outbreak has commenced in form of; airing of jingles to educate the people on preventive measures against Ebola and other epidemic prone disease;

    production and distribution of posters and handbills for public enlightenment; sensitization of traditional healers, religious and community members in Oyo State on prevention of Ebola and other communicable diseases”.

    Sign and Symptoms of Ebola disease

    Gbadegesin further said that: “For emphasis, members of the public are hereby informed that symptoms of Ebola infection are as follows:

    Sudden onset of fever, weakness, muscle pain, headache and sore throat, conjunctivitis, hiccups, dysphagia, followed by vomiting, diarrhea and rash, bleeding from body orifices (nose, Eye) coughing of blood, unexplained vagina bleeding, bleeding from the gums and bloody urine.

    “Circumstances that fuelled the epidemic in neighbouring countries are spread to health care workers while nursing those affected by the disease; spread to care givers of those affected by the disease (mainly family and community members); contact with body or body fluid of the dead; living in the same household with somebody affected by the disease raises the chance of coming down with the disease”, adding that “transmission across international borders have been shown to propagate the spread of disease, (hence) special surveillance is thus being paid to our border LGAs which are Atisbo, Saki West, Itesiwaju and Iwajowa which share borders with Republic of Benin”.

    What to do?

    The Commissioner directed that any suspected case should be taken to the nearest public health facility for adequate care. “The State Government thus wishes to assure the populace of effective monitoring of the situation.”  He said advising residents of the state to call 08033280687, 07087288333 to report cases of the disease.

  • Ebola: Minister confirms female doctor dead

    Ebola: Minister confirms female doctor dead

    A female consultant physician at the First Consultant Hospital, Lagos who participated in the treatment of Late Patrick Sawyer who died of Ebola Virus Disease is dead.
    She was confirmed dead by Health Minister, Professor Onyebuchi Chukwu on Tuesday night.
    The deceased doctor was not named, but Dr Ameyo Stella Adadevoh had been undergoing treatment at the EVD Isolation Centre in Lagos after leading the team that treated Sawyer.
    “With this unfortunate development the total number of Ebola Virus related deaths in Nigeria now stands at five. The other two patients currently under treatment in the isolation wards are stable and are being taken care of,” the minister said in a statement by his Special Assistant on Media and Communication, Dan Nwomeh.

  • Ebola: ‘Lagos, Abuja have implicated animals’

    The Federal Government has said that Lagos, Abuja and a few major cities across Nigeria are areas where animals implicated in the spread of the deadly Ebola virus are found in large numbers.

    The government said it had started a survey to ascertain the distribution of these animals, especially the fruit bats, in the urban centres where they are found.

    The Minister of Environment, Mrs. Laurentia Mallam, disclosed that the federal government was focusing on controlling the animals in a bid to halt the spread of the virus.

    Mallam, in a statement made available to reporters in Abuja by the ministry’s Deputy Director Press, Bem Gong, said: “The control of animals implicated in the spread of this disease, especially fruit bats, which are so numerous in many of our urban cities such as Abuja, Lagos, Kaduna, Enugu, to mention but a few, is now our major focus.

    “We have started a survey of their distribution in Abuja where we have found a substantial population in Wuse area, the Three Arms Zone and some areas of Maitama District and Kubwa. We have equally commenced a similar survey in other states and towns in order that we may implement a comprehensive exercise.

    “We are also in touch with the various states of the federation for the implementation of massive disinfestations of homes, offices, hospitals, hotels and indeed public places infested with bats, rats and other pests.”

    Mallam said another area of great concern is in the management of Nigeria’s healthcare wastes at various hospitals in the country.

    She said: “In most cases and in many places, healthcare wastes are combined with other municipal wastes and disposed at open dumps indiscriminately. Even where their exposure remains hazardous and perilous, the menace of scavengers in healthcare wastes are indeed harmful and potential source of Ebola virus disease.

    “A very perturbing and critical area in the spread of Ebola virus disease is through contact with fomites and personal articles of persons exposed to the disease. We honestly wish to encourage the disinfection of fomites and homes where the disease has occurred.”

     

     

  • Ebola: Nigerian, two Guineans under watch in Ogun

    Two Guineans and a Nigerian have been isolated and kept under close observation at Imeko – Afon, Ogun border community with the Republic of Benin.

    The three who entered Nigeria illegally through the porous Ogun border community, were  intercepted by the operative of the Ports Health Services(PHS) and put on close watch following the suspects’ inability to convince the officials that they had no primary or secondary contact with Ebola Virus Disease(EVD).

    The Ogun State Commissioner for Health, Dr. Olaokun Soyinka made this known to reporters in Abeokuta, the state capital, while intimating them on the efforts of the state government to prevent the spread of the virus in the state.

    According Soyinka,  the Guineans and a Nigerian, were returning  from Guinea last Friday and had attempted to use illegal route at the border when the PHS officials accosted and questioned them on their EVD status.

    Soyinka said having failed to prove they were  EVD-free, the officials  prevented them from entering Nigeria and also put under observation where they would be undergoing medical tests for 21 days.

    The Commissioner said there are now three isolation centres one in each of the three Senatorial districts in the state, adding that the government would be establishing more centres  in the 20 local governments of the state.

    He equally disclosed that the Ogun government “has taken delivery of its preventive suits and other equipment needed for the isolation centres as it is ready to take in patient if necessary” while no fewer than 50 people have enlisted as volunteers in the event of emergency.”

    He said: “as part of our emergency response plan, government is compiling a list of volunteers who can be called upon for a variety of task if we need to escalate our activities.”

    The Commissioner also urged residents to remain calm and avoid having direct contact with the body fluids of an infected person and maintain personal hygiene with regular hand washing and use sanitisers.

    He advised the people that “if you suspect Ebola, contact health authorities immediately on these hotlines: 09021715984, 09099140121, 09099140122.

  • Oyo state battles to unravel suspected Ebola patient

    The Oyo State government is battling to unravel the veracity of a report that a suspected Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) patient was brought to Adeoyo State Hospital, Ring Road, Ibadan, on Monday.

    The state Commissioner for Health, Dr. Muyiwa Gbadegesin, said the result of the blood sample taken to University College Hospital (UCH) for laboratory test is being awaited.

    “We saw a suspected patient. It will be presumptuous to jump into conclusion until the result of the test is out. But it is not likely to be positive,” Dr. Gbadegesin said.

    The case has created fear and panic among residents as people abstained from contact with the sick.

    However, Dr. Gbadesin assured that there is no cause for panic, adding that the government has put measures in place to check the disease.

    “But let’s wait for the result of the blood test,” he stated.

     

  • Ebola: ‘Nigerian’ hospitalised in Germany

    A 30-year-old woman was taken to a German hospital on Tuesday after showing symptoms that were consistent with the deadly Ebola disease, AFP reports.

    Dozens of other visitors and staff at a Berlin employment office building were also stopped from leaving for several hours as emergency services sealed off part of the street.

    The mass-circulation Bild daily said the woman had fainted, that she hailed from Nigeria and that she later claimed that she had recently been in contact with people infected with Ebola.

    Several people who had been with the woman inside the building in the northeastern district of Prenzlauer Berg were also taken to hospital for testing.

    Berlin fire department spokesman, Rolf Erbe, said that because the patient came from “an area affected by a highly contagious disease, we took these precautions.”

    He said the testing in the city’s Charite hospital would take some time.

    “The patient was isolated inside the ambulance; the staff took the appropriate protective measures. An emergency medic, the public health officer, arrived and the necessary precautions were taken,” he added.