Lessons from Nigeria on managing Ebola

NAIROBI: It may be too early to celebrate Nigeria's ability to control the highly contagious and fast-spreading Ebola virus.

Only after the epidemic has been controlled in the three badly affected West African nations, namely Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia, can Nigeria, and indeed the whole of Africa, 'celebrate.'

However, the fact that the World Health Organisation ( WHO) officially announced that Africa's most populous nation had "eliminated" one of the world's deadliest haemorrhagic fever viruses is the strongest indicator that what Nigeria did needs to be cautiously documented by the surviving hands-on local health experts.

The brave and brilliant local doctors who quickly detected the doomsday virus helped set the national healthcare system on the move to control and curb the epidemic, and no case of Ebola has been reported in Nigeria since August 31, 2014.

Nigeria now needs to help her less fortunate neighbours because the chances of those infected with Ebola entering Nigeria or any of her other nearby nations cannot be ruled out.

Nigeria gave Africa its first virologists over six decades ago while others have worked in some of the world's leading infectious diseases labs.

In East Africa, the now retired Dr Peter Tukei stands out as the leading hands-on expert on Haemorrhagic Fever Viruses (HFV) and was involved in the construction of a high-security bio-safety lab at the Kenya Medical Research Institute (Kemri) with US support.

However, Nigeria did not need any help from East Africa, where Uganda and Kenya have had cases of Marburg HFV.

Unless the world doubles its efforts to help the three badly affected West African nations to overcome the disaster, some families, villages and even communities will be wiped out.

The US has sent a large contingent of military personnel to fight Ebolabut if a number of them get infected, it could shoot political temperatures against its president and of course, Africa, which in the views of some should be quarantined.

Tthe Ebola outbreak in West Africa and the 'fear response' from the rest of the world has been worsened by unacceptably slow responses byWHO.

It has to be shouted that even Congo DRC is struggling with Ebola, which has already killed up to 80 people there and chances that there could be another major outbreak in the Central and Eastern Africa region remain a reality.

It is a shame that despite these doomsday viruses being studied by others from outside Africa, local experts only talk and react when epidemics occur.

However, it is the first time the mysterious Ebola has hit the three West African nations with very weak healthcare systems and infrastructure.Ebola has actually decimated some of their most dedicated medics.

The African Union should by now know that there is need to go beyond 'pure politics' and deal with real survival issues or basic human needs like good health, clean living environments, and the popularisation or socialisation of science on a continent that is still overwhelmed by myths and superstitions.

The fact that health workers and information officers who wanted to help villagers were savagely attacked speaks volumes.

There is much to learn from Doctors without Borders and missionary health workers who stick with Africa even in such spine-chilling tragedies.

The Ebola epidemic should result in Africa allocating more resources for health research, education and even manufacture of medicines, biomedical equipment and other materials. What Nigeria has done gives hope and should serve as a starting point to revolutionise Africa's healthcare systems.

More so when one notes that Nigeria's health experts conducted nearly 20,000 visits to identify and manage those who could have been infected.

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