Reps Urge Proactive Prevention Of Ebola Outbreak

The Nigerian House of Representatives has called on the Nigerian government to set up surveillance against the recurrence of the Ebola virus in the country.

This was contained in a motion of urgent national importance brought to plenary by Hon. Dachung Bagos.

The House said that considering the fact that the virus has been ravaging Uganda for two weeks undetected, there was need for Nigeria to take urgent action to spare its citizens the outbreak of the virus.

The House therefore mandated the Federal Ministry of Health and the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) to ensure intensive observation of travel protocols for inbound passengers from red flagged countries.

“The House mandates NCDC to set up a national emergency response to control the likely spread of the Ebola virus”.

“It also mandates the ministry to activate strategies to monitor adherence of the virus and ensure that citizens comply with advisory aimed at curtailing its spread in Nigeria.

“Investigations are ongoing to determine the scope of the outbreak and the possibility of its spread as the importation of cases to neighbouring countries can not be ruled out at this stage.

“Further aware that the information available is that the overall risk has been assessed to be high at national level, the possibility that the event started two weeks before the identification of the index case is worrisome. The Ebola virus is giving a lot of people concern not only in Nigeria but round the world as it has a high fatality rate” the motion said.

Backing the motion, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila said: “The motion moved by Bagos regarding the creation is good, God forbid if there is an outbreak of Ebola again so that we are not caught napping.”