Sunday Ehigiator
The Director General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDC), Dr. Jide Idris, has said that while Nigeria is not fully prepared for a potential Ebola outbreak, the country has the capacity to contain the disease if it enters its borders.
The NCDC boss disclosed that a recent assessment of the country’s readiness for an Ebola outbreak showed Nigeria’s preparedness level at about 59 per cent.
Speaking in Lagos yesterday amid concerns over Ebola outbreaks in parts of East Africa, Idris acknowledged gaps in Nigeria’s preparedness but expressed confidence in the country’s response mechanisms.
“We cannot be 100 per cent prepared. It is not possible; not even America can claim that.
“But let me be frank with you: if Ebola comes into Nigeria, we will stop it with the current knowledge and systems we have now.”
According to him, “Our latest level of assessment puts us at about 59 per cent. But that’s quite variable. You can’t be 100 per cent prepared, but the essence is that we keep preparing because things change,” he said.
He added, “To be frank, we are not 100 per cent ready, but we are improving our readiness. This is a readiness that has to cover the whole country.”
Idris explained that Nigeria remains vulnerable to the importation of Ebola because of international travel, migration and the country’s extensive land borders.
According to him, “The risk of importation is high, and that is why we are not relenting in our surveillance and preparedness efforts.”
He said the NCDC has deployed advisers to states across the federation to evaluate readiness levels and identify areas requiring urgent intervention.
“We have sent our advisers to the states. They are assessing what is available, what is lacking and what needs to be strengthened,” he said.
The assessment, he noted, covers emergency operations centres, isolation facilities, laboratory capacity and the availability of critical medical supplies needed to respond effectively to any outbreak.
Idris also disclosed that authorities have stepped up monitoring at airports and other points of entry into the country, while efforts are ongoing to strengthen surveillance along Nigeria’s porous land borders.
He stressed that the lessons learned from Nigeria’s successful containment of Ebola in 2014 remain invaluable.
“We have done this before. The experience from 2014 has equipped us with knowledge and systems that we can deploy if the need arises,” he said.
Nigeria earned global recognition in 2014 after successfully containing an Ebola outbreak that began when an infected traveller arrived in Lagos from Liberia.
Through aggressive contact tracing, surveillance and isolation measures, the spread of the virus was halted and the country was later declared Ebola-free by the World Health Organisation.
Reassuring Nigerians, Idris said the NCDC remains on high alert and is collaborating with state governments and international partners to improve preparedness across the country.
“We are not where we want to be yet, but we are working every day to improve our readiness. Our focus is to ensure that if Ebola comes, it is detected quickly, contained rapidly and prevented from spreading,” he said.
