‘Lessons learnt would help prevent Ebola resurgence in Nigeria’
Experts in Nigeria’s health sector have said that lessons learnt from the occurrence of the previous Ebola outbreak in the country would help prevent resurgence of the virus.
The experts also stated that effective surveillance, containment and general precautions measures will help minimise risk of viral come back in the country.
“With all the documents, all key success factors of how Nigeria was able to indicate each of the cases after Mr Sawyer was identified, the country should learn from that and make sure it does not happen again,” said Clare Omatseye, President, Healthcare Federation of Nigeria.
“Rather than been reactive each time, we have to be more responsive and make sure we are prepared when it comes again.
“We have a lot of learning lessons from the past outbreak in the country and one of it was the fact that private public partnership playing important role, collaboration is very important,” Omatseye said.
She said that Ebola is a big crisis for West African countries and Nigeria was at the forefront of Ebola crisis some years back
Omatseye noted that the way forward to prevent resurgence is for Nigeria to keep its boarders checked, continued enlightenment on hand washing and learn from having an emergency response system, as well as quarantine facilities.
The Ebola epidemic ravaged parts of Nigeria In October 2014. Following quick response to the outbreak, World Health Organisation (WHO) declared the country Ebola-free 42 days after the last known case had occurred as the country managed to limit the number of cases to 19 with 10 deaths.
The recent epidemic outbreak of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), since 4 April which recorded more than 30 possible cases including 19 deaths.
Similarly, Oladoyin Odubanjo chair, Association of Public Health Physicians of Nigeria (APHPN), Lagos Chapter said, critical factor increasing the risk reoccurrence and returning to old habits as soon as the epidemic should be kept in check.
“Effective surveillance is clearly important, containment and general precautions measure will minimise risk of viral transmission.
“All we need to do is to practise more universal care precautions at all times generally and avoid reverting to old habits. People need to practice more hygiene, which is very important and the environment needs to be cleaner,” said Odubanjo.
“There must be regular, repetitive reminders through teaching, practice, discussions and integrations of the salient points before people adopt the new behaviour,” said Chris Bode the chief medical director and consultant paediatric surgeon Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), Idi Araba.
Bode added, “After all, most of the values we hold dear today were similarly validated and revalidated till they became tenets we simply follow because we are taught they are good.”
ANTHONIA OBOKOH