Ebola disease under control, says Fashola

Lagos Sate governor, Babatunde Fashola said at the weekend there was no need for the citizens to panic over the outbreak of the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) as the state working with the federal government and other partners including the World Health Organisation (WHO) was doing everything to bring it under control.

Fashola gave assurance in a state-wide broadcast, yesterday, saying also the government was not shying away from its primary purpose of protecting and saving lives, as the state House of Assembly has approved addition expenditure to fund efforts at containing the spread of the disease. He noted also that those who already contracted the deadly disease were receiving the best of care and recovering.

“I can now tell you that in the last one week, with the help and advice of our technical partners, such as the World Health Organisation, the Centre for Disease Control and the Medecins Sans Frontiers, who have tracked this virus and studied it for decades, our response is a lot better than when the news first broke; and our capacity is increasing daily.

Although we have suffered very painful losses of lives, I think it is fair to say that we are not yet at an epidemic stage and we are determined to do everything not to get to that stage; because of the grave consequences to the safety of human lives.

Since Monday last week, precisely on the 11th of August, I commenced meetings on an almost daily basis with stakeholders in our society, religious leaders, traditional rulers, market men and women, community development associations, to brief them of the risk, to re-assure them that we are daily gaining control, to advise them and all of you to be cautious but not to panic.

My view of the fact that we are gaining control, is informed by verifiable facts that I receive daily from our health workers that all the cases of those who have either unfortunately died, or those who are sick, and those who are contacts under surveillance are directly traceable to the imported case.

There is also now the news that a confirmed victim has fully recovered, which reinforces the advice from our experts that it is not an automatic death sentence. This is encouraging news from which our containment strategy can profit greatly; because it means that we do not have any case of unknown origin, which will raise the risk of an epidemic,” Fashola said.

The governor, who commended health workers and care-givers attending to the victims, said everything was being done to ensure their safety.

“While we are doing everything to assure their safety and to give them confidence to proceed; I want to passionately appeal that we must not do anything to distract them or demotivate them. What they need now is our encouragement and support to gain even stronger control of the situation. He said, however, that additional medical personnel were being needed to join hands with those