President Goodluck Jonathan has summoned all the 36 state governors and their health commissioners to an urgent meeting on the outbreak of the Ebola Virus disease in the country. Jonathan, who made this known during a conference organised by the Interfaith Initiative For Peace in Abuja on Monday, said it was “unfortunate that one mad man” brought the virus to Nigeria.
Before he spoke, the Minister of Health, Onyebuchi Chukwu, had disclosed at a news conference that Nigeria had recorded another Ebola case, the 10th so far.
The case involves a nurse, who is one of the health workers that managed Patrick Sawyer, the Liberian-American in a Lagos hospital that brought the deadly virus to Nigeria on July 20. He died on July 25 and is the first known Ebola index case in the country.
The matron of the Lagos hospital died last week at the Infectious Diseases Hospital, Yaba, Lagos where the seven other known Ebola cases are being managed by experts.
The meeting between Jonathan, governors and health commissioners will hold at the Presidential Villa, Abuja on Wednesday.
The President, who was responding to some children who had during their presentation during the conference, explained that the meeting revued up Federal Government’s efforts aimed at containing the spread of the EVD.
He promised that his administration would do everything humanly possible to contain the emergency health situation posed by the virus in the country.
Jonathan said, “As a government, we promise we will do everything possible to contain Ebola.
“We are doing our best, on Wednesday I am going to meet with all the governors of the states. They will come with their Commissioners for Health.
“We must make sure that every state is prepared, where they lack, the Federal Government will support them in containing the Ebola virus.
“It is unfortunate that one mad man brought the Ebola virus to us; but we have to contain it. This is a good forum that we will use to also plead with our religious leaders to, in their preachings communicate clearly because people listen to you more than they listen to politicians.”
Beware of burial ceremonies
–President
The President also said based on the information available to him that about 60 per cent of the cases of the virus were transmitted during burials, there was the need for Nigerians to be mindful of such ceremonies.
He said available reports showed that Sawyer contracted the virus during the burial of his sister which he attended.
Jonathan said rather than wait to be quarantined, Sawyer forced his way into Nigeria and infected others.
He said it was imperative that people were allowed to be buried wherever they die rather than their corpses being moved from one part of the country to the other.
The President said those who derived pleasure in celebrating deaths could wait until a more auspicious time when the challenge posed by the Ebola virus would have been overcome.
He expressed the belief that if the situation was managed well, it would not take the country more than two months to overcome it.
Jonathan recalled a situation in his community when the corpse of a cholera victim was not handled properly and the disease ended up almost wiping out the entire community.
He said rather than burying the corpse with caution, the people were celebrating the death.
The President said, “I have been having discussions with people outside and within the country since this incident happened. My conversation with the Director-General of the World Health Organisation, Mrs. Marget Chan, was quite instructive.
“She said that the spread of Ebola from analysis so far, 60 per cent was during burials. You will recall that in our announcements we pleaded that people must be mindful of burials.
“We are pleading that this is not the best period for such ceremonies. If somebody dies now, that person should be buried where he died.
“When we get over this, people can exhume the remains of their loved ones if they want. Government will provide the medical examiners that will help them to exhume the remains for them to bury the way you want.
“I am saying so because I have a personal experience. In 1971, I was still in secondary school then when cholera broke out in my mother’s community, and of course those of us from Southern Nigeria celebrate death. The person who died of cholera happened to be an elderly man. So they started celebrating him for days and of course, the whole village was almost wiped out.
“So, when the WHO chief told me that 60 per cent of the spread of Ebola was through burials, I decided that we must advise our people not to over celebrate the dead now.
“Sawyer who brought Ebola to Nigeria also contracted it because his sister died of Ebola and he went for the burial and he participated in a way that he became a suspect.
“His country asked him not to leave the country so that he would be observed but the crazy man decided to smuggle himself out and now we are suffering because of it.
“So, we are pleading with religious leaders that most of the religious things we do, the traditional things we do, sharing of food and sharing of drinks, unnecessary body contacts and so on and so forth should be avoided. Let us listen to the suggestions by professional health workers to save our people.
“If we manage Ebola well, we can get over it in two months and we will return to our normal lives. Now if a Nigerian is travelling out of this country and he has fever you will be quarantined.
“The first thing they do is to check the temperature in your ear and once it is high, they will quarantine you and test you for Ebola before they can release you.”
The President also asked Nigerians to work together and be ready to sacrifice certain privileges so that the nation could get out of the problem as early as possible.
Jonathan also faulted the various misleading information emanating from the social media on the virus.
He particularly warned Nigerians against excessive consumption of salt.
The President said, “Some of these social media send out all kinds of instructions encouraging people to drink salt.
“Taking excess salt is extremely dangerous. If you bath with it, it might not hurt you much but drinking it is extremely dangerous.”
Also in Abuja, the Minister of Health told journalists at a news conference that the latest Ebola case “was one of the nurses who also had primary contact with the index case.’’
Chukwu added that the husband of the nurse was among the 177 people who had now been placed under surveillance.
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