US To Citizens: Nigeria Contained Ebola; We Can

Saturday, 04 October 2014 20:09 Written by Laolu Akande, New York Category: National Hits: 140 Print Email Barack-Obama 05-10• Reels Out FG’s Success Story To Reassure Citizens AT a time reference to Nigeria in global news and international affairs has been mostly about the unending killings by terrorists in the Northeast, the Ebola management seems to be shining some positive light on Nigeria and its medical personnel, some of whom paid the supreme sacrifice to ensure that Ebola was controlled. In an effort to bolster the confidence of its people that Ebola would be contained in America, few days after a Liberian national was diagnosed with the deadly virus, the manner Nigeria handled its own patients is now being used by the US government as proof that the virus would be contained in America as well. This is coming just as the Nigerian Ambassador in the US, Prof Ade Adefuye, assured Nigerian travelers to America that they would not be subjected to any form of medical screening on arrival at US airports. Speaking late Friday afternoon at the White House at a hurriedly convened press briefing on the first Ebola case diagnosed in the US, top White House officials and US government health officials were pressed by journalists who pointed out to the failure of the Texas Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, where the Liberian patient went, but was not immediately diagnosed even though he had told the medical team in the hospital of his symptoms and that he had just returned from Liberia. A White House reporter asked at the press briefing “Is nobody concerned that there were these breakdowns in Dallas? And are you really confident that there’s not going to be similar breakdowns elsewhere along the same line? Responding the US Human Health Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell was the first to bring up the way Ebola was contained in Nigeria to reassure Americans at a press briefing beamed live all across the US and globally. Said she “ we’re confident these processes will work. If you look at what happened in Nigeria in terms of the cases in Nigeria, what happened is we quickly activated — and CDC was a part of supporting the country of Nigeria both at the state and federal level to be put in place the things that it needed to put in place. We know it’s about detect, isolate, treat the patient, and do the contact tracing. Those are the steps. And now we see where we are with Nigeria in terms of the cases and them having moved through.” According to the Secretary, who holds the office equivalent to the of Health Minister in Nigeria, the US will “continue to work on our education and continue to work with locals and put out more and more information, we put out more information and updated information. Whenever there is anything that we see that we can do a better job on communicating, we will do that. Adefuye who issued his statement on the same day the US government officials addressed the press briefing also noted that “the U.S. government, especially the Department of Health, is very much impressed with the success achieved by the Federal, Lagos and Rivers State Governments in combating Ebola. The announcement by Nigeria that it will assist other African countries to combat Ebola has been well received by the U.S. government and public.” APC locks horns with PDP over Ebola National Chairman, PDP, Adamu Mu’azu and National Chairman, APC, John Oyegun National Chairman, PDP, Adamu Mu’azu and National Chairman, APC, John Oyegun The All Progressives Congress and the Peoples Democratic Party on Sunday accused each other of insincerity in the containment of the Ebola Virus Disease in Nigeria. While the APC asked President Goodluck Jonathan to stop taking credit for stopping the spread of the virus, the PDP accused the opposition of wishing that the scourge continued . Ironically, the bickering occurred just days after the social media were abuzz with reports by major United States newspapers, including the Washington Post, praising the pro-active measures adopted by Nigeria in curtailing the spread of the EVD and advising Texas where the Ebola case was recorded to learn from Nigerian example APC, in a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said it was sheer dishonesty for Jonathan and the PDP to turn what was a collective effort to a PDP campaign issue. According to the opposition party, the President and the PDP are wrong to have appropriated the credit for the containment of the EVD without giving due attention to the real heroes of the successful battle. It mentioned the late Dr. Stella Adadevoh and her colleagues at the First Consultant Hospital in Lagos; officials of the ministries of Health in Lagos and Rivers States and the patriotic Nigerian volunteers, among others as the heroes. The APC described as a cheap shot and a shameless venture, the President’s decision to make the Ebola success story a campaign issue during a PDP rally in Benin, Edo State. It claimed that Jonathan created the impression that only the PDP deserved the credit for the successful containment of the disease. APC said while indeed the Minister of Health, Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu, exhibited the kind of professionalism and purposefulness that were not common with the Jonathan administration during the battle against Ebola, it would be uncharitable for the PDP-led Federal Government to pretend as if the governments of Lagos and Rivers states did nothing. The statement partly read, “The cities of Lagos and Port Harcourt are perhaps the largest metropolis to have ever been hit by the EVD since the first outbreak was recorded in the Democratic Republic of Congo almost 40 years ago, and any mishandling of the disease could have spelt disaster not just for the cities but for the country as a whole. “But the ever-dogged and determined Governors Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State and Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers States employed the same winning strategies that have stood their states out of the pack and quickly rose to the occasion, putting in place measures that ensured a quick curtailing of the EVD spread. “The measures inclu ded painstaking contact-tracing, unrelenting follow-up and creative treatment of infected patients even without access to the experimental drug Zmapp. “There is no doubt that Nigeria is fortunate that the EVD outbreaks were recorded in those two states. It is a measure of the high premium that the chief executives of the states place on human life, a testimony to the strong health systems they are building and an indication of their purposeful approach to governance that they successfully contained the disease, thus earning Nigeria a rare accolade from the global community.” The party also advised President Jonathan not to use the Ebola containment effort as another tool to divide Nigerians along party lines. The APC said it was sad that the President who inherited a united Nigeria was dividing its people along ethnic and religious lines on the altar of selfish personal ambition and short-term opportunism. “It will amount to a monumental tragedy if the President will again use the Ebola success story, which has earned Nigeria a rare acclamation from the global community, as a tool to further divide Nigerians,’’ it said. But the PDP, through its National Publicity Secretary, Chief Olisa Metuh, described APC’s statement as another failed attempt to discredit the PDP-led Federal Government and relegate its efforts in the containment of the EVD in Nigeria. Metuh said in a statement that the APC was frustrated and unhappy because Nigerians were happy with the PDP-led Federal Government for “the speed and energy with which it tackled the scourge and brought it under control.” “We know that the APC prefers that the Ebola scourge continued unabated in Nigeria so as to have what to blame the PDP-led government for. Now that it has been contained, the APC is frustrated because the people are happy with President Jonathan and the PDP-led Federal Government for the proactive manner with which the disease was confronted and overcome,” he added. According to him, the success recorded on the EVD was because Jonathan did not politicise it. The statement partly read, “The PDP makes bold to state that the multi-sectoral approach deployed by the Federal Government with the concerted collaboration of the federal ministries of Health, Aviation, Information, Education, Transport and other relevant agencies such as the Nigerian Immigration Service for intensive screening, quarantine and treatment efforts as well as the massive awareness ended the spread of the disease and resulted in its containment in our country. “We are also amused by the contradictions in the APC’s statement in which it also commended the roles played by the Minister of Health in the containment effort. “We ask, is the minister not appointed and supervised by President Jonathan? Is he not of the PDP? Or is the APC now trying to appropriate him?” Copyright PUNCH. All rights reserved. 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