NIGERIA’S success at containing the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) brought into the country by a Liberian visitor has continued to attract accolades worldwide.
Indeed, the country took a bow for Ebola containment at the ongoing World Congress of Biomedical Lab Science in Taiwan.
This is coming as all schools across the country especially in Lagos, Rivers and Ogun states are expected to resume Wednesday after the effective check of the disease.
According to a report monitored in Agence France Presse (AFP), this week, teams of American health officials are Lagos-bound to learn from Nigeria’s experience in stopping the outbreak before it could wreak havoc.
Last week, on the same day, the United States (U.S.) confirmed its first case of Ebola, the Centre for Disease Control (CDC) proclaimed that Nigeria had stopped its outbreak.
CDC Director Tom Frieden said on Sunday: “Because of a rapid public health response, effectively tracking nearly 900 contacts, it appears they have been able to stop the outbreak in Nigeria… Though we can’t give the all clear yet, it does look like the outbreak is over there. I’m confident that wherever we apply the fundamental principles of infection control in public health, we can stop Ebola.”
According to the report, Nigeria’s success appears to be rooted in “contact tracing” – determining every single person that Patrick Sawyer, or Patient Zero, had contact with, and then monitoring them for signs of the virus.
“Contact tracing can stop the Ebola outbreak in its tracks,” a chart distributed by the CDC declares.
Now contact tracers are at work in the U.S., setting out to track down as many as 100 people who may have been exposed to Thomas Duncan, who traveled from Liberia to Dallas, where he was eventually diagnosed with the virus, The New York Times reports.
Besides, the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) regional director said yesterday that more cases of the deadly Ebola virus would almost inevitably spread in Europe but the continent was well prepared to control the disease.
Speaking to Reuters just hours after Europe’s first local case of Ebola infection was confirmed in a nurse in Spain, the WHO’s European director, Zsuzsanna Jakab, said further such events were “unavoidable.”
Spanish health officials said four people had been hospitalised to try and stem any further spread of Ebola there after the nurse became the first person in the world known to have contracted the virus outside of Africa.
“Such imported cases and similar events as have happened in Spain will happen also in the future, most likely,” Jakab told Reuters in a telephone interview from her Copenhagen office.
“It is quite unavoidable ... that such incidents will happen in the future because of the extensive travel both from Europe to the affected countries and the other way around,” she said.
Several countries in the WHO’s European region, including France, Britain, the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Norway and Spain, have treated patients repatriated after contracting the disease in West Africa, where Ebola has been raging through Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia since March.
Prior to the slated date of October 8, 2014, for resumption of all schools in Lagos, the state government has begun the distribution of sanitary wares and materials like water tanks, buckets, soaps, gloves, posters, handbills, instructional compact discs and handouts on the Ebola virus disease to schools in an effort aimed at preventing an outbreak of the disease.
The Special Adviser to the Lagos State Governor on Public Health, Dr. Yewande Adeshina, who stated this yesterday while addressing teachers and heads of schools at Ikeja noted that the state government postponed the resumption of schools earlier slated for September 22 to October 8 in order to put some preventive measures in place before the resumption of schools.
Adeshina explained that the preventive mechanism being put in place included the training of teachers and focal persons for each school on Ebola virus disease prevention, procurement and distribution of thermoscans (devices for checking temperature), production and distribution of information, education and enlightenment materials including posters and handbills on Ebola virus and hand washing to schools and mobilising heads of schools on how to source and make water available in their respective schools.
Adeshina noted that the state government had data on the availability of water in public schools across the state, stressing that temporary measures were being put in place by the state government on the provision of water in schools that lack this essential item.
These measures according to the special adviser include the provision of water tanks, water tanks stands, coloured and transparent buckets and distribution of N5,000 to schools without water for the temporary purchase of water for use in the schools.
She noted that the state government would include ‘a hand washing’ class in the school curriculum to encourage a practical session on hand washing in a bid to inculcate the culture of hand washing in pupils.
“We have posters to educate pupils on Ebola Virus Disease, we also have posters that give instructional aid to proper hand washing technique. These posters and instructional materials are designed to be posted on the walls of classrooms. A compact disc to aid teachers on presentation on Ebola virus disease and a student handout manual on the disease have also been distributed,” Adeshina said.
According to the special adviser, the thermoscans are not Ebola virus detector devices but devices for checking temperature which signal fever; which is one of the symptoms of Ebola virus disease. He added that the disposable gloves were also meant to be used by teachers when handling sick pupils.
She implored all heads of schools and teachers to utilise the various materials and resources being given to them judiciously and ensure the success of the efforts of the state government in the containment of the Ebola virus disease.
According to medical laboratory scientists, if government gives the desired support, Nigerian scientists can produce a suitable vaccine for Ebola.
The scientists, who made this assertion, recalled that Nigerian medical laboratory scientists once produced the smallpox vaccine used for the control and eradication of smallpox in the entire West African region.
The National President of the Association of Medical Laboratory Scientists of Nigeria (AMLSN), Dr. Godswill Okara, who spoke on behalf of his colleagues, told The Guardian yesterday: “Yellow fever and rabies vaccines were produced in large quantities in Nigeria by medical laboratory scientists in the 1960s and 1970s. It is sad that Nigeria now prefers to import yellow fever and rabies vaccines from abroad. Our facilities have been allowed to degenerate because of poor funding and gross mismanagement.”
In an email exchange with The Guardian from Taipei, Taiwan, Okara noted that Nigeria’s success in rapidly diagnosing the Ebola virus disease and its ability to halt the spread of the outbreak received tremendous applause from the over 2,000 delegates at the congress.
“They have also commended Nigeria’s offer to train 15 healthcare professionals including medical laboratory scientists in the effective response, diagnosis and control measures for the disease in the three affected West African countries,” he noted.
Okara stressed: “Our Asian colleagues narrated their experience in the diagnosis and control of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak in their region sometime ago, especially the delay involved before they succeeded in the diagnostic characterisation and control of the causative viral pathogen.”
Nigeria, Okara noted, should indeed consider the response to the Ebola virus disease outbreak as a wake-up call.
“We should learn the salient lessons that our Nigerian health professionals have the capacity and capabilities to perform effectively if given the necessary resources to work. It was possible to achieve the success because government promptly released the funds needed to give the desired rapid intervention to investigate, accurately diagnose and manage all the infected persons, as well as prevent further contact with those infected persons.”
He called on the Federal Government to focus serious attention on the reactivation of the Vaccine Production Laboratory in Nigeria to produce vaccine for the eradication of Ebola virus disease.
“The high fatality rate associated with the infection calls for nothing but urgent effort at its eradication through vaccination. If the government gives the commitment and funds, it is achievable.”
On vaccine production for Ebola, Okara noted: “Vaccine production is entirely a medical laboratory procedure which medical laboratory scientists possess the knowledge, skill and technical dexterity to produce. Inter-professional bickering in the health sector and the persistent penchant by some professionals in the health sector to head and control every imaginable thing in the sector was the cause of the collapse of vaccine production in Nigeria. Square pegs must be put in square holes, if we must make progress in Nigeria.”
Already, researchers and other experts are to converge on Abuja under the aegis of Treatment Research Group (TRG) on the Ebola Virus Disease to review the current national efforts, available resources, and develop a roadmap for research on the virus and other emerging diseases among Nigerians.
The meeting planned for tomorrow is expected to host experts and stakeholders from across the nation.
A statement from the Ministry of Health noted yesterday that: “The outcome of the high level meeting will help to galvanise support on a common agenda among experts and stakeholders, including the organised private sector, that share similar concerns on EVD and other diseases in Sub Saharan Africa and globally.”
As part of the national response to the Ebola outbreak in the country, the Federal Government on August 4 commissioned the Treatment Research Group on the Disease.
The meeting, according to Director of Information at the Ministry of Health, Mrs. Ayotunde Adesugba, would “facilitate the closure of knowledge gaps in the understanding of the Ebola Disease, develop potential treatment options, while formulating a more efficient containment framework to better equip the nation against any future outbreak of Ebola or any other related emergent disease.
“Nigeria has been commended nationally and internationally for its robust and effective national response to the Ebola Virus Disease. Since August 31, 2014, no new case of the virus has been reported in Nigeria. It is therefore expected that the World Health Organisation (WHO) will soon officially declare the EVD over in Nigeria.
Meanwhile, the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), South-West Zone D, yesterday urged President Goodluck Jonathan to wade into the alleged denial of visas to Nigerian students billed to participate in an international competition in China.
The students were said to have been denied visas over the fear of Ebola. They threatened to protest at the Chinese embassy in Nigeria should the embassy continue to deny the students of the Ekiti State University (EKSU) visas. The students are travelling to China to represent Nigeria in an international academic completion tagged ‘Enactus 2014’.
The ‘EKSU Enactus Team’ came tops in the national competition which is an entrepreneural/academic contest among over 100 Nigerian tertiary institutions that took part in the competition in June.
The EKSU Enactus Team should, by virtue of emerging national winner, visit China before October 25 to represent Nigeria at the global contest with other students’ teams representing their countries.
The zonal coordinator, Asofon Sunday said: “It has come to our notice that Ekiti State University (EKSU) Enactus team, scheduled to represent Nigeria at a world wide competition holding in China has been denied entry visa by the Chinese Diplomatic Embassy on the grounds that our country is infected with Ebola Virus Disease.
“We view this singular act of the Chinese Embassy as the highest form of injustice and racial discrimination against young, vibrant and patriotic Nigerians who have prepared assiduously to make their nation proud in an international competition.
“It is instructive to note that Nigeria has been declared free of EVD since September 23 and all international agencies, including the World Health Organisation (WHO) attest to this.
“This is not about EKSU Enactus team, it is much more an embarrassment to the cordial diplomatic relationship between Nigeria and China. We further view this as a deliberate plan by the Chinese government to prevent Nigeria from being represented at the competition.”
Corroborating the NANS claims, EKSU’s Director of Entreprenuership Centre and Students’ Adviser, Prof. Awe Abel Ariyo said an attempt to deny the students visa by the Chinese embassy amounted to denying Nigerians visas and would be met with stiff resistance.
Source: GUARDIAN NEWSPAPER
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