The Presidential Task Force on Ebola Preparedness, Virus Disease Preparedness and Emerging Public Health Threats has assured Nigerians it can handle Ebola in the country.
The Chairman of the Task Force and Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila, said this while speaking to newsmen after the group’s emergency meeting at the State House on Wednesday.
Gbajabiamila said the Task Force has been working behind the scenes since it was inaugurated in June this year. He added that this is why it was easy to detect the index case discovered yesterday.
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“It’s very important to note this. Since the issue of Ebola came up in June, there have been about 44, 000 flights in and out of Nigeria. So, it’s because of what the Ministry of Health, the task force and all the agencies have been doing. All hands have been on deck.
“The passenger with the disease showed no symptoms, which came four days after the woman got into Abuja, and it was the identification process and the protocols that were put in place that enabled the quick identification. That also speaks to the country’s capacity and ability to deal with this disease as best as we can,” he said, according to a statement by presidential spokesman Bayo Onanuga.
He assured Nigerians that the Task Force would strengthen whatever needed strengthening, the protocols, and ensure more rigorous enforcement moving forward.
“The Task Force is on top of it. NCDC is on top of it; everyone is on deck. We must build community trust and avoid panic, but it’s also important to state clearly that this is a collaborative effort between the government and the people.
He appealed to all Nigerians to respond to calls for compliance for the good of all.
Meanwhile, the Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Ali Pate, said Nigeria has competent health authorities, including private hospital operators and agencies, Immigration, Aviation, Interior, and subnational actors, who have put surveillance systems in place across the country, ready to respond.
“We have been conducting contact tracing diligently and isolating those contacts of the index imported case in this country. We will continue to do that, and we want to reassure Nigerians that the federal government, alongside its technical partners, the World Health Organisation, the Africa Centre for Disease Control, and our own Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, have activated the incident management system across the various pillars.
“They are working day and night diligently, and our hospital capabilities are also activated, such that we can aim to contain this case, as has been the case in other countries, but we will not relent. Our population should respect public health directives.”
“Most of our states have adequate response plans. We have the resources, and we’re mobilising those capabilities. And we’re also confident that if we continue on this path, we should be able to dent this outbreak.”
He urged citizens to avoid misinformation while combating the virus.
“The key also for the population is to avoid spreading misinformation or baseless rumours, which can cause unnecessary panic. The Task Force leadership has met. WHO and Africa CDC are working closely with the team.
“In addition to our exceptional public health physicians who had successfully tamed this virus in 2014 and had contributed to other countries, we are confident that if we continue in this direction, we will emerge out of this crisis in a much stronger place,” Pate assured.
Other members of the committee at the meeting were the Comptroller-General of Nigeria Immigration Service, Kemi Nandap; Managing Director, Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Bunmi Kuku; General Manager (FAAN), Adamu Adamu; WHO Representative, Pavel Ursu; Special Regional Representative to the Director General, Africa Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, Aliko Ahmed.
The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Administration and Operations and the Secretary of the Task Force, Oyinade Nathan-Marsh; the Public Health Executive, Niniola Williams; the Mandate Secretary for Health and Environment, FCT, Dolapo Fasawe; and the Chairman of the Medical Advisory Committee (State House Medical Centre), Victoria Ogala, were also there.
Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Olajumoke Oduwole; Commissioner for Health, Lagos State, Akin Abayomi; and Director of Operations, Licensing and Training Standards (DOLTS), Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority, Captain Donald Spiff, also joined the meeting via Zoom.
On Tuesday, the Federal Government confirmed a case of the virus in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). Pate said that the imported case of Ebola virus disease was confirmed by laboratory testing.
Pate noted that the patient is a woman with a recent travel history to Uganda, who returned to Nigeria with symptoms on October 7, which progressed four days later before tests confirmed the infection.
However, the Ugandan authorities denied reports of an Ebola outbreak in the East African nation.
Uganda’s Ministry of Health said that the location of exposure remains under investigation, adding that travel through Uganda alone was insufficient to establish where the infection occurred.