The Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole has called
for heightened vigilance and intensified awareness efforts over the latest
outbreak of Ebola virus in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The Minister noted that health care providers and the
general public must report any sign of illness to public health officials
immediately.
This is coming as the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria
(FAAN) has assured of adequate surveillance at the nation’s airports. Henrietta
Yakubu, FAAN’s Acting General Manager, Corporate Affairs, told the News Agency
of Nigeria (NAN) that there was no direct flight from Congo to Nigeria and that
all the preventive measures being put in place at the airports were still in
place.
The federal government in response to the announcement by
the World Health Organisation (WHO) which confirmed cases of Ebola in the DRC
has directed port health officials to step up inspection activities and to
report any sick person or suspects to ensure that epidemiologists in the states
where they are present are immediately alerted and relevant tests conducted.
The symptoms to look out for include; fever, fatigue,
weakness dizziness and muscle aches. Patients with more severe cases show
bleeding under the skin, internal organs or even from bodily orifices like
mouth, eyes, and the ears.
Nigerians are urged not to panic as the Centre for Disease
Control is on ground and equipped to secure the health of citizens. The agency
has for a while now, been strengthening states capacities to detect, manage and
respond to hemorrhagic fevers including Lassa fever.
The minister called on states to begin social mobilisation
and media awareness efforts via TV, radio, print and social media and charged
state health ministries to strengthen their supervision services and escalate
any incident appropriately.
Yakubu FAAN’s spokesperson, said that port health officials
were at alert at all airports, adding that the authority had also informed them
of the need to increase surveillance.
“We don’t have direct flights from Congo, we only have from Rwanda but I want to assure members of the public that we still have all preventive measures in place at our airports.
“There are sanitisers at our arrivals with the scanning apparatus called thermal scanners being installed by the Port Health Services.
“The scanners have camera monitors that display pictures aside the capturing of temperature.
“Passengers still fill that form to ensure that people arriving the country through our airports are not potential carriers of deadly diseases.
“The port health officials are always at alert and we will also inform them of the need to increase their surveillance.
“So, there is no cause for alarm,” she said.
Nigeria experienced the Ebola virus in July, 2014 when a
Liberian-American, Patrick Sawyer, who had the virus flew from Liberia to the
Murtala Mohammed International Airport, Lagos and died five days later.
Click to signup for FREE news updates, latest information and hottest gists everydayAdvertise on NigerianEye.com to reach thousands of our daily users
No comments
Post a Comment
Kindly drop a comment below.
(Comments are moderated. Clean comments will be approved immediately)
Advert Enquires - Reach out to us at NigerianEye@gmail.com