Ebola: WHO commends Nigeria, urges her to provide support to other W/Africa countries

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has commended Nigeria for her commitment and dexterity in handling of the outbreak of the Ebola Virus disease in the country, urging her to provide expertise and support to other affected countries in the West African sub-region‎.

The Executive Secretary, National Primary Health Care Development Agency, Mohammed Ado, disclosed this to newsmen after the meeting between President Goodluck Jonathan and the Director-General of the World Health Organisation (WHO), Dr. Margaret Chan, on the successful containment of the Ebola Virus Disease in the country and the effective transmission polio ‎.

“Mr President had interaction with WHO DG, we discussed the issue of polio and she commended Mr. President for the leadership and effective management that had  led to effective transmission polio  in Nigeria ‎and also containing the Ebola virus outbreak. And Nigeria was well commended because Mr. President demonstrated highest level of leadership and other countries were called upon to emulate the good work of Mr President.

“You will recall that for polio , Nigeria was able to reduce between 2013 and 2014 by 95 per cent. Nigeria is being tipped as the next country to exist from polio endemic country and was again commended by all countries and the leadership of Mr. President was appreciated by WHO and other countries were called upon to emulate Nigeria’s example.

“Nigeria’s roll in containing the Ebola outbreak in the country was well commended and other countries were called upon to emulate us. In fact one key thing that came out from the meeting between Mr. President and WHO DG was for other countries to benefit from Nigeria’s expertise in terms of containing Ebola and Nigeria is going to support other countries in terms of capacity building, in terms of the emergency operation centres that we used. Because the emergency operation centres that we used which is the holding room arrangement which was used to contain the Ebola outbreak in Nigeria. So Nigeria will be supporting other countries in terms of capacity building and human resource because already we have about 500 human resources available to assist other countries within the West African sub region.

“So what this means is that public health system in Nigeria is working and working very well under the leadership of minister of health and with the overhead oversight of Mr president. So lot of good things are happening in Nigeria and is obvious that Nigeria is providing that leadership in the sub region in terms of containing the Ebola virus”, he said.