FG Inaugurates Ebola Task Force

The Federal Government (FG) on Thursday inaugurated a Presidential Task Force on Ebola Virus Disease Preparedness, saying Nigeria would not wait for an outbreak before taking action.

NEWSNGR reports that the Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila, said the task force was set up to ensure the country was fully prepared against any possible outbreak of the disease.

Speaking with State House correspondents after inaugurating the task force at the State House, Abuja, Gbajabiamila confirmed that no Ebola case had been reported in Nigeria.

Gbajabiamila said, “We did the inauguration today on the preparedness of Nigeria for the Ebola virus disease. We’ve covered a lot of ground. Right now, there’s no reported case, which is good news, and that’s why all hands have to be on deck to make sure the measures we are taking are preventive, not curative.

“We don’t want to be in the situation we were last time, where we had a carrier in the country and we’re all running helter-skelter.”

Gbajabiamila said the government’s goal was to sustain the current situation.

“What we want is a zero case, as we have now. We want to maintain a zero case,” he said.

Airports, Land Borders Under Watch

The Chief of Staff disclosed that the task force had created subcommittees to coordinate surveillance, border control, immigration management and emergency response.

He said one major lesson from the 2014 Ebola outbreak was the need for stronger coordination among federal and state authorities, especially states with international entry points.

According to him, governors and representatives of Lagos, Rivers, Enugu and the Federal Capital Territory participated in the meeting.

Gbajabiamila said the government was also paying attention to land borders because of the risk posed by informal migration routes.

“Normally, when people talk about emergency preparedness and cross-border diseases such as this, they think about airports. But now we’re covering not just airports; we’re placing greater emphasis on land borders.

“We have a lot of cross-migration through the land borders, and the Border Control Development Agency is involved, immigration is involved, and a lot of the border communities are involved,” he said.

NCDC Strengthens Surveillance

Also speaking, the Director-General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDC), Dr Jide Idris, said surveillance systems had been strengthened at major points of entry across the country.

Idris said that although Nigeria had no recorded case of Ebola, preparedness remained necessary.

“The focus is to be prepared. We don’t have any Ebola case here now, but we need to be prepared. We need to ensure that we don’t get that Ebola virus here.

“However, just in case one slips in, we want to be prepared nationally to identify and deal with the case,” he said.

The NCDC boss said existing surveillance and emergency response systems were being upgraded to address Ebola-related threats.

He said the preparedness framework involved the ministries of health, interior and education, immigration authorities, border control agencies and state governments.

“The bottom line is that the objective is that we do not allow Ebola to come in. If it does come in, we are prepared to rapidly identify and manage the case nationally,” Idris said.

The inauguration came amid renewed vigilance across parts of Africa over Ebola outbreaks.