By Odimegwu Onwumere
After a Federal
Executive Council (FEC) meeting in Abuja in April, the Nigeria's Minister of
Information, Labaran Maku declared that there had not been any testified case
of Ebola Virus outbreak in Nigeria. This was a follow-up to the information the
honourable minister said that the Federal Ministry of Health briefed the FEC on
the believed outburst of Ebola Virus in Nigeria.
"The FEC was
briefed by the Federal Ministry of Health on the alleged outbreak of Ebola
virus in Nigeria. FEC was informed that the health ministry expert checked out
the reports of purported outbreak of the disease and found none to be true,"
Maku had said.
Continuing, Maku
reassured that the health ministry was ever ready to control the virus in the dawn
of an outbreak in the country. Maku counselled that, "Citizens are
reassured that there is no Ebola fever in the country and all the checks so far
undertaken declare clearly that we don't have it. The ministry has assured that
should there be anything like that within our boundary it will be quickly tackled."
Nigerians were warned
to always be concerned about their health statuses. The Ministry of Health had also
admonished those citizens with symptoms such as high fever, headache, severe
abdominal pain, diarrhea and bleeding to report to the health authorities.
The warning was
on-the-cards for Nigerian citizens who had travelled to Guinea, Sierra Leone,
and Liberia believed to be countries that have been dealt with by the syndrome.
Health professionals
around the world are worried over the disorganized medical infrastructure to
deal with the epidemic, which according to the World Health Organisation, WHO, is
novel to western Africa. It is believed that the virus had claimed over
two-thirds of the infected patients in the areas that the bug had been noticed.
According to a report
by WHO, about 110 people had seemingly died from the virus in Guinea and about
10 people were kneel-bent by the virus in Liberia. Commenting on the danger of
the disease, Keiji Fukuda, assistant director-general, WHO, had said: “This is
one of the most challenging Ebola outbreaks we have ever faced.”
With a population of
over 1.5 million, Conakry, the capital of Guinea was reported with about 20 of
the creepy-crawly cases. Senegal had shut her border with Guinea, with
presupposed patients with the disease reported in Sierra Leone. A source
said that one of the suspected cases was discovered to have died in a desolated
ward.
How prepared the
Federal Government of Nigeria is against this backdrop is left for time to
tell. Eva Marie Coll Seck, Senegal’s health minister, was quoted as saying by
AFP: “We have everything in place to take measures against Ebola. We have a
well-oiled system, which we are perfecting daily.”
While the Nigerian
Government was reassuring its citizens of an Ebola Virus-free country, seven
out of nine suspected patients were confirmed in Mali. The neighbouring Ghana
also has feared that the virus had entered the country even though that she
discarded the presence of the virus in the country just like her neighbouring
Nigeria.
But while the Federal
Government was with high hopes and giving gratuitous hopes to its citizens,
Stephane Hugonnet, a WHO medical officer, reportedly said: “Obviously there is
a risk that other countries might be affected, therefore we absolutely need to
remain vigilant.”
National Health Bill
The Nigerian Senate
had recently passed what was regarded as “the highly controversial National
Health Bill 2014” into law. This followed its third reading in the house. How
this law would assist the country in being vigilant about the Ebola Virus
cannot be ascertained, even though that it has been said that the bill was targeted
to establish a support for the directive, supervision and development of the country's health
system.
It’s an acknowledged
fact that before the bill was passed into law it suffered numerous hiccups
since Sen. Ifeanyi Okowa (PDP-Delta), who was the sponsor, submitted it.
Although, the senator on one occasion had said that the bill that was once regarded
as controversial, would help the country to realize the Universal Health
Coverage and meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) target.
"We all know
that the primary health care is within the purview of the local government
councils, the states and the Federal Government actually do give support
programmes apart from technical support.
“This bill also seeks
to provide one per cent of the consolidated revenue fund for the purpose of the
development of the primary health care.
“The bill is also for
the purpose of providing health care insurance to certain class of people who
are actually deprived.
“The 50 per cent of
the one percent fund that is provided for in clause 11 under a Basic Health
Care Fund will be utilised by the NHIS for providing health coverage.
“This will cover
pregnant women, children who are under five and the elderly and physically
challenged persons," Okowa had said.
Okowa was of the
belief that part of the funds would be used to endow the Primary Health
Centres (PHCs) as well as train and re-train health experts, adding that
the country needed PHC dearly with at least each ward having one PHC; but he
feared that the country was yet to have well trained personnel. He added that
the country needed to train such experts and have the effective drugs,
facilities and equipments in place.
One of the
suggestions that Okowa gave that could help in the fight against the arrival of
the Ebola Virus in the country and other diseases was that states could also partake
in civilizing primary health centres through a complementary fund that would
enable them to profit from the combined revenue fund.
In his words: "Fifty per
cent of the fund shall be used for the provision of basic minimum package of
health services to citizens in eligible primary or secondary health care
facilities through the NHIS. Twenty per cent of the fund shall provide
essential vaccines and consumables for eligible primary healthcare facilities. Fifteen per
cent shall be for the provision and maintenance of facilities, equipment and
transport for PHC facilities.”
Investigations
revealed that one of the benefits of the National Health Bill was to put an end
to the incessant squabbles that had existed among professional bodies in the
health sector, making a roadmap for the duties and responsibilities of each of
the professional body.
No Restrictions To The Affected Areas
According to a
source, Ebola Virus first had its presence in the Democratic Republic of Congo
in 1976. In 2012, about 29 people died of the virus in Guinea. It was an inspirational
experience in Guinea, when experts said that they saw victims that recovered
from the virus, even though that it’s believed that the outbreak is not over in
that country, just as Nigeria should not rule out the outbreak of the virus in
the country someday, as long as it’s not earnestly being controlled in the
country.
Dr Marie-Claire Lamah
from Medecins Sans Frontieres in Conakry, and MSF spokesperson Sam Taylor, were
among the persons who had expressed enchantment at seeing patients hale and
hearty again from the disease. This was on the hill that in 2000, about 224
people died out of a total of 425 inveterate, contaminated patients in Uganda,
making it the year that the country witnessed the largest-known Ebola scourge.
In all of this, reports nonetheless, were that WHO had not suggested any travel or trade
constraints to Guinea, Liberia, Mali or Sierra Leone, even though that the
world health body had not stopped showing great concern about it. Even though
that Nigeria had not recorded any case of the virus, on April 9 2014, the
Federal Government did not shy away to own-up that Nigeria was in threat owing
to the level the virus was ravaging other African countries.
“Ebola has been moving eastward towards Nigeria as
well and we are already facing danger from the Central African Republic, even
with what is happening in Congo, people are also migrating to Chad and,
Cameroon are also in our borders. So, Nigeria is in danger but we have recently
said that in addition to the leaflets that we are producing for Lassa and other
fevers, we will now emphasise Ebola fever,” said Onyebuchi Chukwu, minister of
health, after the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting.
Remedy
Connoisseurs had advised that the Federal Government had
to secure the country’s borders and make sure that those coming into and going out
of the country are well monitored. In a statement apparently by Osahon
Enabulele, President, Nigerian Medical Association (NMA): “Anywhere you have
movement of people from one location to the other. The likelihood of having the
virus spread is high. That calls to attention the need for us to check our
borders.”
Enabulele continued: “More often than not, when there
are movements of people from the affected countries, especially when you have a
very defective, weak surveillance system at the entry points – land, air and
sea – people from infected regions or localities can be given access into your
country. That leads to the possibility of having it spread into new
territories, especially if there is contact with those infected persons.”
He added: “If those surveillance mechanisms are not on
ground and if the level of suspicion is not high, then you could have an
infected person coming into your environment. An Ebola patient will start manifesting
the symptoms no more than 25 days after he contracts the virus.”
The director-general, Nigerian Institute for Medical
Research (NIMR), Yaba, Lagos, Innocent Ujah had suggested to the country and
the citizens to maintain a high level of hygiene and sanitation, since there is
nonexistence of qualitative treatment and human vaccine for the virus.
He maintained that there should be severe awareness in
the country about the dreaded virus in the areas of sensitization, for people to
go for medical checkups regularly. Adding, he said that in the event of the
virus, citizens should be attended to by professionals wearing protective
equipments such as gloves, since the disease is believed to be transmittable.
Odimegwu Onwumere,
a Poet/Writer, writes from Rivers State.
Tel: +2348032552855
