LBS, Yale train 200 health workers to tackle infectious diseases

About 200 health workers across Nigeria have been equipped to tackle infectious diseases more effectively at a workshop jointly organised by Lagos Business School, Yale University, US and the Lagos State Government.

The ‘Training the Trainers’ workshop, which was held in two batches at the LBS campus recently, was aimed at developing an effective response system to curb the spread of infectious diseases in Nigeria.

A high-powered team comprising medical experts from College of Medicine in Lagos, Yale University, US and the African Biosafety Association were on hand to sensitise participants on the importance of hygiene and personal protection, while making a case for more research on infectious diseases. With case studies, slide presentations and practical demonstrations, the trainers provided detailed information on how to effectively manage infected patients and prevent the spread of communicable diseases.

“This training has been organised because it is essential to have knowledgeable professionals in all our healthcare facilities,” said Henrietta Onwuegbuzie, the LBS faculty who organised the programme. “If the Late Adadevoh had not been knowledgeable enough to identify and restrain the index case of the Ebola virus when the patient was brought to her hospital, we would have had a monumental humanitarian disaster”.

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Onwuegbuzie recalled that during the recent Ebola outbreak, several hospitals rejected patients presenting symptoms of the disease out of fear. This, she observed, indicated that the majority of medical personnel in the country do not know how to handle infectious diseases. She said, “If the patients that were turned back had indeed been infected, the Ebola episode in Nigeria would have spelt one of the greatest human crises of our time. Our intention is therefore to train trainers, who will in turn disseminate this training in all states of the federation.”

Orode Doherty, Country Director, Africare Nigeria, who facilitated sessions during the training, noted that this objective could be achieved through the network of medical personnel that attended the training.

“We would like to use the relationships we develop here to identify opportunities either to repeat trainings like this or explore other avenues of collaboration through Yale Partnerships for Global Health which aims to develop sustainable partnerships that build human capacity,” said Professor Michael Cappello, an infectious disease expert who led the team of facilitators from Yale University. He explained that his team’s involvement in the project was driven by the need to speed up the response time of the nation’s health workers in the heat of epidemics.

Kemi Ajumobi