President Goodluck Jonathan has assured that with the cooperation of all Nigerians with professional health workers instructions, Nigeria will overcome the scare of Ebola in two months.
This coming as has summoned an emergency meeting with the governors and health commissioners in the states and the Federal Capital Territory, to ensure they are properly equipped to fight Ebola on Wednesday.
President Jonathan made this call at Interfaith conference with theme, “the imperative of interfaith understanding and cooperation for responsible politics”organised by both the Sultan of Sokoto Alhaji Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar III, and The Catholic Archbishop of Abuja, Cardinal John Onaiyekan, to foster peaceful cooperation ahead of the 2015 elections.
He said according to World Health Organisation (WHO) analysis, 60 per cent spread of Ebola virus is through ceremonial burial rituals, and has urged Nigerians to put a stop to it for now.
He assured those whose relatives died far from home to bury the death with less ceremony, promising government’s assistance in future when the ebola crisis over to aid exhume the corpse for proper burial in future.
The President has also urged Nigerians to ignore social media broadcasts that prescribe solution without medical backing like the salt in water solution, so has not to cause more harm than good.
The President who commended the children who did a short play to portray Nigeria’s diversity and need to foster peace, said his administration was determined to contain the spread of ebola but needs the cooperation of Nigerians.
“Let me appreciate our children who have performed wonderfully well in their presentation and have also raised the issue of ebola, calling on our religious leaders to stop the ebola problem. They called on the Sultan of Sokoto Alhaji Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar III and John Cardinal Onaiyekan to stop the problem. So both the Sultan and Cardinal Onaiyekan now have challenges but we will help you.
“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 on health, and we must make sure that every state is prepared, where they lack federal government will support the state to make sure that they have what it takes to contain ebola virus,” he said.
The President who was visibly angry about the imported case of Ebola into the country, described the late Patrick Sawyer, the American Liberian, as a mad man who defied medical advise and smuggled himself into the country, thereby putting Nigeria on the list of countries battling ebola virus.
“Is unfortunate that one mad man brought the Ebola to us, but we have to contain it. But this is a good forum that we will use to also plead with our religious leaders because people listen to you more than they listen to politicians. So in our various preaching in the mosques in the church we should communicate clearly.
“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. Margaret Chan was quite instructive.
“She said that the spread of Ebola from analysis so far, 60 per cent of spread is during burials. That’s why you will recall that in our announcement, we pleaded that we must be mindful of burials. We are pleading that our people who believe in some kind of ceremonies and so on, this is not the best period for those ceremonies. If somebody dies now that person should be buried where he died, when we get over this you can exhume the body if you want, government will provide the medical examiner that will help you exhume the body for you to go and bury the way you want.
“I am saying so because I have personal experience. In 1971, I was still in secondary then when cholera broke out in my mother’s community, and of course those of us from Southern Nigeria celebrate death, and the person who died of cholera happened to be an elderly man. So they started celebrating him, for days, lying in state and all and of course the whole village was almost wiped out.
“So when the DG WHO told me 60 per cent of the spread of ebola was through burials we must advise our people not to over celebrate burial now. The dead should be allowed to bury the dead.
“Sawyer that brought this 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. And the country asked him not to leave the country so that he will be observed but the crazy man decided to smuggled 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, spiritual healing homes within this period let us manage it professionally. Let us listen to the suggestions by professional health workers so as to save our people.
”If we manage it well we can get over it in two months and we will return to our normal lives. Immediately people stop dying we can get back to our normal lives. Now if a Nigerian is travelling out of this country and you have ordinary fever you will be quarantined. The first thing they do is to check the temperature in your ear, and immediately the temperature is high, they will suspect and quarantine you and test you for ebola before they can release you to join normal people,” he said.
The President said, “we must work together we have to sacrifice certain privileges so that we can get out of the ebola problem as early as possible. Even some of these social media send out all kinds of instructions for people that they should drink salt, please don’t drink salt.
“Taking excess salt is extremely dangerous. If you bath with it, it might not hurt you much that is why you can bath with salt water in the ocean, but drinking it is extremely dangerous.”
