October 25, (THEWILL) – For the second time in Nigeria’s health history, the deadly Ebola virus entered the country through importation. In 2014, it came through a transiting Liberian visitor who had to be prevented from escaping from the hospital where he had sought treatment to continue with his journey.
Doctor Stella Ameyo Adedevoh, who physically engaged the sick man and forced him to receive treatment after diagnosing him and thereby helped Nigerians in containing the spread of the disease, paid the supreme price with her life. This sad chapter in the country’s health history opened with a yawning gap in policy and administration of health issues. The new case is similar in its reception, detention, and prevention. Patrick Sawyer, the Liberian public health consultant for the Liberian Ministry of Finance, who imported the deadly virus into the country over a decade ago, flew into Lagos from Monrovia, Liberia to attend an ECOWAS conference, collapsed upon arrival at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport and was taken to First Consultant Hospital, where he tested positive for Ebola and died on July 14, 2014.
It is heartening that the current invasion, reportedly through a traveler, this time, a woman from either Uganda, according to Nigerian authorities, or Kenya, according to Ugandan authorities, had passed through the airport, made contact with 44 persons before she landed in the hospital in Abuja where the virus was detected. Then, what ought to have been done after the previous case which claimed the life of heroine Adedevoh, is now being considered, more than a decade later.
Tellingly, the Senate on Thursday moved to amend the country’s 100 -year-old Quarantine Act, just as the President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio, raised the alarm over border surveillance, wondering why a traveler from the East African country was detected at a hospital rather than at the airport, with 44 contacts identified.
This means that mandatory screening of passengers at airports, seaports and land borders for inward and outward passengers had been at best perfunctory. Prevention, they say, is the gatekeeper against diseases, more so for the Ebola virus, for which there is yet to be an approved vaccine. Indeed, the Democratic Republic of Congo last week started a pivotal Phase 2/3 clinical trial to determine whether vaccine candidates can protect against the deadly Bundibugyo virus, following the vaccination of the first participant in Bunia.
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Fair enough, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, NCDC, had alerted the higher authorities to the likelihood of Ebola’s importation into the country. The manner of its entry, the initial reaction to its origin, and where it was detected showed that no adequate proactive measures were taken.
However, this is no time for lamentation.
Arriving in the country at a time when electioneering has since kicked off, it is expected that every agency, organization, and relevant stakeholder should be prepared to collaborate and ensure that the virus is contained as fast as possible.
The solidarity messages and offer of support from the UN, WHO and some countries should spur the Nigerian authorities to speed up the execution of containment, preventive and other salutary measures against the disease. In 2014, 20 cases were officially confirmed, while eight of them died. So far, only the hospitalized traveler is known to be a confirmed case, while the health status of the 44 contacts is yet to be known.
Stakeholders and the central and sub-national governments were key factors in wiping out the 2014 attack through unanimity of purpose. It can be done again.
