TO contain the spread of Ebola virus, the Federal Government has taken several measures as the Nigeria’s Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) has started temperature screening of passengers arriving from places of high risk.
Also, the Federal Government has set up an Inter-Ministerial Committee on Ebola virus, which sat for the first time Thursday, just as Nigerians have been advised to always wash their hands and avoid handshakes if possible.
Similarly, there was confusion in Anambra State as a corpse was brought back from Liberia, as residents fled their homes on the alleged claims it may have been a victim of the dreaded Ebola virus.
Meanwhile, scientists tracking the deadly Ebola virus in West Africa, say it’s not about complex virology and genotyping, but about how contagious microbes - like humans - use planes, bikes and taxis to spread.
In the same vein, President of Liberia, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has ordered the closure of all the schools in the country in an attempt to address the spread of the deadly Ebola.
She also declared today a work-free day to enable health workers in the country to disinfect and chlorinate all public facilities.
In a related development, WHO will meet with presidents of West African countries impacted by the Ebola virus today in Guinea to launch a new joint US$100 million response plan.
The global body also disclosed that courier companies initially refused to convey the samples of Ebola virus from the late Patrick Sawyer to an analysis centre in Senegal.
It added that it will not encourage any travel or trade restrictions applied to Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone or Nigeria, based on the current information.
“Screening and monitoring is being done at all major international airports. It entails checking passengers’ temperatures with a hand-held machine,” NCAA spokesman, Sam Adurogboye told Reuters, adding, this meant for any journey that passed through Liberia, Guinea or Sierra Leone.
A compulsory blood test would follow if the passenger’s temperature gave cause for concern, he said.
Minister of Health, Onyebuchi Chukwu, Thursday urged Nigerians to wash their hands as often as possible.
He said in Abuja yesterday that people should not offer a handshake unless it is necessary, urging people to wash their hands before poking their nose, touching their eyes or putting hands into their mouths.
He said a wash hand campaign would be intensified in public places.
Workers from different agencies operating at the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Ikeja and the Nnamdi Azikiwe International, Abuja were sensitised by Port Health officials on the dangers posed by the Ebola virus and how to prevent the spread of the virus in the work place, home and the community.
The Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) has raised a special team and unit to contain the situation. Besides, a source in Nkwelle Ezunaka community in Oyi council of the state revealed that being that the victim died in Liberia where there is outbreak of Ebola disease informed Governor Willie Obiano directive to the Commissioner for Health, Dr. Josephat Akabike to investigate the death.
The tense atmosphere in the community was further worsened by the arrival of officials of the State Ministry of Health who immediately directed security operatives to cordon off the mortuary where the body was deposited pending investigation by medical experts.
Akabike who later addressed reporters in Awka yesterday, said that the state government, and the Federal Ministry of Health were handling the situation.
He, however, said that it had not been confirmed that the man died of Ebola disease, but there was the need for precautionary measures to be taken.
The risk of the virus moving to other continents is low, disease specialists say. But tracing every person who may have had contact with an infected case is vital to getting on top of the outbreak within West Africa, and doing so often means teasing out seemingly routine information about victims’ lives.
In Nigeria, which had an imported case of the virus in a Liberian-American who flew to Lagos this week, authorities will have to trace all passengers and anyone else he may have crossed paths with to avoid the kind of spread other countries in the region have suffered.
Sierra Leone has declared a state of public emergency to tackle the outbreak, while Liberia has ordered the closure of schools and considering quarantining some communities.
“The most important thing is good surveillance of everyone who has been in contact or could have been exposed,” said David Heymann, a professor of infectious disease epidemiology and head of global health security at Britain’s Royal Institute of International Affairs.
The spread of this outbreak from Guinea to Liberia in March shows how tracing even the most routine aspects of peoples’ lives, relationships and reactions will be vital to containing Ebola’s spread.
The original case in that instance is believed by epidemiologists and virus experts to have been a woman who went to a market in Guinea before returning, unwell, to her home village in neighbouring northern Liberia.
The woman’s sister cared for her, and in doing so contracted the Ebola virus herself before her sibling died of the hemorrhagic fever it causes.
Feeling unwell and fearing a similar fate, the sister wanted to see her husband - an internal migrant worker then employed on the other side of Liberia at the Firestone rubber plantation.
She took a communal taxi via Liberia’s capital Monrovia, exposing five other people to the virus who later contracted and died of the Ebola.
In Monrovia, she switched to a motorcycle, riding pillion with young man who agreed to take her to the plantation and whom health authorities were subsequently desperate to trace.
“It’s an analogous situation to the man in the airplane (who flew into Lagos and died there),” said Derek Gatherer of Britain’s Lancaster University, an expert in viruses who has been tracking the West Africa outbreak closely.
Gatherer noted that while Ebola doesn’t spread through the air and is not considered “super infectious”, cross-border human travel can easily help it on its way. “It’s one of the reasons why we get this churn of infections,” he said.
Sirleaf, who announced the measures in a nationwide, broadcast late Wednesday, also presented a National Action Plan against Ebola that would try to contain the spread of the disease.
According to WHO, the sample from the case was delayed in being sent to the WHO Collaborating Centre at the Institute Pasteur in Dakar, Senegal, due to refusal by courier companies to transport the sample.
The world body said in a statement that it continues to monitor the evolution of the Ebola virus disease (EVD) outbreak in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea and Nigeria.
“The Ebola epidemic trend in Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea remains precarious, with continuing community and health-facility transmissions of infection,” the organisation said.
It added: “Efforts are currently ongoing to scale up and strengthen all aspects of the response in the four countries, including epidemiologic investigations, contact tracing, public information and community mobilization, case management and infection prevention and control, coordination and staff security.”
“The scale of the Ebola outbreak, and the persistent threat it poses, requires WHO and Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone to take the response to a new level, and this will require increased resources, in-country medical
expertise, regional preparedness and coordination,”
says WHO Director General, Dr Margaret Chan.
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