The death last Friday of a Liberian, Mr. Patrick Sawyer, quarantined in a private medical facility in Lagos, for suspected infection of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) has triggered panic across the country. That is essentially because the disease is highly contagious and has no cure yet. In confirming the death, the Lagos State Commissioner for Health, Dr. Jide Idris, said the victim died overnight after treatment showed he was stable. He said: “The result of the test conducted at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), proved he had the virus. But we are yet to finally assume that it was Ebola virus until the result from the laboratory in Dakar, Senegal proved same.”
We commend the proactive response of both the federal and the Lagos State health authorities on this particular issue. According to the Health Minister, Professor Onyebuchi Chukwu, the victim was a 40-year-old man from Liberia, who was travelling to Calabar for an ECOWAS meeting. The victim was suspected to be having the virus upon his arrival at the Murtala Muhammed Airport in Lagos on Wednesday, and was taken to the hospital for proper diagnosis and treatment. He, however, died in the early hours of Friday despite intensive care. Chukwu disclosed that contacts have been made with the airline and passengers that travelled with the victim for proper monitoring to avoid the spread of the virus.
While it is commendable that the federal government has placed sensitive locations on high alert, there is the need to go beyond issuing out orders. With the establishment of the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), there is need for a more clinical measure to be taken to avert the spread of the virus. Ebola is deadly because it kills victims within a week of infection, leaving no time for treatment; it has no known vaccine or cure and it has most of the symptons of malaria: fever, sore throat, headache, etc. It takes between two to three weeks before the complete symptoms manifest.
It is indeed noteworthy that we warned in a recent editorial that Nigeria is at risk of cross-border diseases given the laxity at our immigration points. As we have seen with insecurity and terrorism, it is now imperative to strengthen our health facilities at the airports, seaports and other border points to put in check the transmission of Ebola virus by travellers from Ebola-threatened countries. The current status of health systems at the ports does not suggest or show any capacity to prevent the spread of diseases.
A more practical way to be prepared in taming the tide of such virus like Ebola is for the Federal Ministry of Health to broaden its scope of workforce for purposes of intervention. As it stands, it is doubtful if the ministry has enough manpower to tackle the challenge. So much resources is expended on keeping staff at offices but time has come to resurrect the field health officers who are trained to assist citizens at the ports, homes, market places and other important areas to prevent the spread of pandemics.
While the necessary steps embarked upon to educate citizens about the danger of Ebola are welcome, more awareness is still needed. And it should be a continuous one; with information on ways of preventing the disease passed across to citizens in the simplest way. More important, a probable way of addressing future cases of not just Ebola threat but other diseases is to foreground the works of the NCDC and entrust the centre with more responsibility that are geared towards disease prevention. In the same token, health facilities and personnel at the nation’s various ports and entry points should be revived and strengthened. Above all, health officials and indeed all Nigerians must remain vigilant.
