By Tosin Oyediran
Nigeria’s preparedness for a potential Ebola outbreak currently stands at 59%, the Director-General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr Jide Idris, has revealed, as health authorities intensify surveillance and response measures amid growing concerns over the disease’s regional and international spread.
Speaking in an interview with ARISE NEWS on Monday, Idris said a recent assessment of the country’s readiness exposed critical gaps that authorities are working to address, particularly at points of entry into the country.
“Our recent latest level of assessment puts us at about 59%. But that’s quite variable. You can’t be 100% prepared, but the essence is that we keep preparing because things change,” he said.
The NCDC chief said a dynamic risk assessment was conducted to determine Nigeria’s preparedness level, identify vulnerabilities and strengthen response mechanisms against any potential importation of the virus.
“We did a dynamic risk assessment for Nigeria basically to assess our level of preparedness, where we are, what gaps we need to cover, and then what we need to do. And very clearly, one area that came out was the point of entry, which is crucial. Because the essence—the objective—is that we should not allow this thing to come into this country,” he said.
According to Idris, the Federal Ministry of Health has already issued protocols for relevant government agencies aimed at tightening controls on international arrivals, particularly through airports.
“Luckily, a day or two after, there was a protocol released by the Federal Ministry of Health to be adhered to by different agencies of government.
“The essence of that is to control traffic into this country, especially traffic from airlines—from those airlines that were bringing patients here. That’s one. You can do the air traffic, and that’s why some states were categorized as high risk. Those states are where you have international airports, because that’s where people come in,” he said.
However, he identified Nigeria’s porous land borders as a more significant vulnerability, warning that travellers entering by road present a major surveillance challenge.
“But the biggest one again is our borders—porous borders. Not everybody comes in by air. You have people migrating by road and that kind of thing. These are the scares, and that’s why again it’s essential for us to prepare,” he stressed.
Idris pointed to Nigeria’s successful containment of the 2014 Ebola outbreak as a key source of lessons for current preparedness efforts, noting that early detection, rapid isolation, contact tracing and laboratory diagnosis remain central to any effective response.
“2014 was interesting because we had never had that experience before. But we were lucky to have the experience of the WHO and the Centers for Disease Control, who actually provided guidance. At the start, nobody knew what the problem was, but again, we learned as we were going along,” he said.
He added: “Basically, it’s the basic things they taught us that we need to put in place:
“Ability to detect: Once you detect, you must isolate the patient. Because, you know, the mode of spread of Ebola is by contact.
“Preventing contact: Once you can prevent that contact, I think we are reasonably okay. And preventing that contact means you need to protect yourself, you need to protect the healthcare workers, and you need to put in place facilities for sanitization.
“Isolation facilities: You need to put in place facilities where you can isolate people with suspected cases.
“Rapid diagnosis: Once you suspect cases, you must be able to do the diagnosis quickly—laboratory diagnosis and that kind of thing.
“A lot of these things we put in place, and they actually guided us. So: detection, isolation, contact tracing—those are the key things.”
While acknowledging that Nigeria is not yet fully prepared for an Ebola emergency, Idris said efforts are underway nationwide to strengthen readiness through assessments of infrastructure, isolation centres, emergency operations centres and stockpiles.
“To be frank, we are not 100% ready, but we are improving our readiness. This is a readiness that has to cover the whole country. Now, what we are doing is that we’ve done an assessment of our situation. We sent people out to do assessments—we sent advisors to State Commissioners to do an assessment of readiness, guiding them on what to do. Look at things like infrastructure, isolation centers, public health emergency operation centers, and what kind of stockpiles they have just in case they have these cases,” he explained.
The NCDC director-general said the agency is also expanding laboratory capacity, training health workers and increasing public awareness to reduce the risk of an outbreak.
“Over the years again, we’ve expanded on what we have, especially the laboratory system. The idea is to extend that capacity to some laboratories, especially those where they have a contingency for international travel. So, we are going to optimize their level of preparedness by training staff, providing reagents, providing PPEs, and telling them what to do. Standard operating procedures are key. Because, like I said, if you don’t follow those procedures, you might be at risk as a healthcare worker. One more important thing is public enlightenment,” he said.
On the country’s broader disease burden, Idris disclosed that Nigeria is currently battling between seven and eight disease outbreaks, including cholera and Lassa fever.
“Aside from Lassa fever, we are managing about seven to eight outbreaks in this country right now. Cholera is there, it’s killing people. Now, Lassa fever is seasonal, and each one of them has what they call carriers or reservoirs. Lassa fever is interesting because it’s carried by rats—specific rats in some areas,” he said.
He attributed the persistence of Lassa fever in some communities to cultural practices and health-seeking behaviours, including the consumption of rodents and bushmeat.
“It’s interesting, but again, everything has to do with our culture, our tradition, and our health-seeking behaviors. In those areas, people regard these rats as delicacies. And there’s no amount of approach to tell them like, ‘Don’t do this, you are going to kill yourself,’ that works. Especially bushmeat. I had the opportunity of going to Ondo State a couple of months ago regarding Lassa fever, and what I saw was interesting because of the practices of the people,” he said.
Calling for stronger subnational action, Idris urged state governments to take greater responsibility for disease prevention and outbreak response.
“And this is where, again, it brings me to: everybody relies on the Federal Government. The State Governments need to take leadership of this,” he said.
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