Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Dr Muhammed Ali Pate, has called on Nigerians not to panic over the outbreak of Ebola in the country, saying that the Federal Government has what it takes to contain the spread of the disease.
Pate said this at the Presidential Villa after meeting with the Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila, on Wednesday.
Pate had earlier confirmed that a woman who recently arrived in Nigeria on an international flight from Uganda had tested positive for Ebola after receiving treatment at a private hospital in Abuja.
Speaking with State House correspondents, the Minister said the Federal Government is collaborating with Uganda and working with relevant authorities to deal with the disease, explaining that the Federal government has competent authorities to be able to deal with the Ebola.
While saying that the Federal Government had curtailed such situation before now, the Minister assured Nigerians that “we have good public health institutions. Nigerians should be reassured.”
He said, “All I can tell you is that we are collaborating with our sister African nation of Uganda. What is important is that we have found this one case. We are doing contact tracing, and we are putting containment measures to ensure that it doesn’t go into our population.
“Federal government has competent authorities to be able to deal with this. We have done it in 2014, and we have good public health institutions. Nigerians should be reassured.”
Pate noted that in spite of the Federal Government efforts, the people must “be vigilant, but not panic, and people should respect public health information from trusted sources, and not spread misinformation and false rumors. We would be truthful to Nigerians with the information that we receive on a daily basis. NCDC has an incident management system.
“They are working 24/7, and the task force is also active. So we have things in place that gives us confidence that Nigeria can weather through this public health crisis, which has taken five months without happening, and we have seen other countries also deal with it.”
He warned the people not to fall into what he described as “a trap of hysteria or panic, it’s one case. It’s an imported case, and we are containing it. And we will continue to take measures. If the situation changes, we’ll come out and inform Nigerians.”
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