Nigeria focused on containing the spread of EVD-Health Minister

While Nigerians may not have seen the last of cases of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) in the country since contacts in Rivers state are yet to complete the 21-day observation period before been certified Ebola-free, Onyebuchi Chukwu said that health authorities are upbeat on containing the spread of the deadly virus.

The minister of health disclosed that the country has focused on appropriate information, education and communication, sustaining surveillance systems, equipping of isolation wards/centres, provision of adequate care for confirmed cases, aggressive contact tracing; and reduction in harmful practices that promote the spread of the virus as strategies for containing EVD in Nigeria.

Chukwu noted that plans have been concluded to conduct two major trainings in all the states. The states are however expected to cascade these trainings down to Local Government Areas (LGAs) with support from development partners.

According to Chukwu “These include training of Trainer (TOT) for health workers on the EVD outbreak and other viral haemorrhagic fevers and TOT for State Health Educators on awareness creation, community sensitization and mobilization. Arrangement has been made to include the military and para-military in the training.

“The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has received approval for the re-production of copies of the protocols and SOPs for management of EVD cases as well as protocol for submitting samples to the laboratories and burying of EVD victims. These will be circulated shortly after this meeting to all the states.”

These developments are coming as Nigeria has increased the capacity to diagnose EVD.

BusinessDay findings show that presently EVD can be diagnosed at Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) laboratory, Asokoro, Abuja, NCDC lab at LUTH, Lagos, NCDC lab at UCH, Ibadan, Irrua Specialist Teaching Hospital Irrua, Edo State, virology lab at Redeemers University, Ogun state and the Irrua-based mobile laboratory which has now been relocated from Enugu to Port Harcourt.

Plans are at advanced stage to enable the capacity of NCDC laboratory at Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital, Kano and NCDC laboratory at University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital, Port Harcourt to carry out diagnosis of EVD as the Federal Ministry of Health plans to procure additional mobile laboratories at Abakaliki, Port Harcourt, Bauchi, Jos and Sokoto.

In the meantime, results from virus sequencing of samples from the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) received yesterday reveal that the virus is the Zaire strain, in a lineage most closely related to a virus from the 1995 Ebola outbreak in Kikwit, DRC, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said in a statement.

According to WHO, the Zaire strain of the virus is indigenous in the country. The global health body pointed out that confirmatory testing was done at Gabon’s Centre International de Recherches Médicales in Franceville, a WHO collaborating centre. Earlier, testing in DRC confirmed Ebola in 6 of 8 samples.

“The outbreak is located in the remote Boende district, Equateur province in the north-western part of the country. Results from virus characterization, together with findings from the epidemiological investigation, are definitive: the outbreak in DRC is a distinct and independent event, with no relationship to the outbreak in West Africa. These findings are reassuring, as they exclude the possibility that the virus has spread from West to Central Africa. Epidemiological investigation has linked the index case who died on 11 August, to the preparation of bushmeat for consumption in DRC,” WHO said.

This is the country’s seventh Ebola outbreak since 1976. The introduction of the virus into the human population following contact with infected bushmeat (usually fruit bats or monkeys) is consistent with the pattern seen at the start of previous outbreaks with the virus spreading from person to person.

The response team has, to date, identified 53 cases consistent with the case definition for Ebola virus disease, including 31 deaths. Seven of these deaths were among health care workers