Nigeria, Uganda collaborating to contain Ebola — Health Minister

By Johnbosco Agbakwuru The Presidential Task Force on Ebola said on Wednesday that the Nigerian government is collaborating with its Ugandan counterpart to contain any outbreak of Ebola. The Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Prof. Muhammad Ali Pate, disclosed this while fielding questions from journalists at the end of a meeting at the Office of the Chief of Staff to the President, Rt.

Asked to react to the statement credited to Ugandan authorities that the country does not have any case of Ebola, contrary to reports that a Nigerian woman contracted the virus in Uganda, the Minister said: “All I can tell you is that we are collaborating with our sister African nation, Uganda. What is important is that we have found this one case. We are doing contact tracing, and we are putting containment measures in place to ensure that it does not enter our population.” He said the Federal Government has competent authorities to deal with the development, adding: “We have done it in 2014, and we have good public health institutions.

We must be vigilant, but not panic. People should respect public health information from trusted sources and not spread misinformation and false rumours. “We would be truthful to Nigerians with the information that we receive on a daily basis.

The NCDC has an incident management system.” The Minister said the NCDC is working hard and that the task force is also active. “So, we have things in place that give us confidence that Nigeria can weather this public health crisis, which has taken five months without happening, and we have seen other countries also deal with it. “So, let us not fall into the trap of hysteria or panic.

It is an imported case, and we are containing it. And we will continue to take measures. If the situation changes, we will come out and inform Nigerians.” He said that at the last Security Council meeting, there was a push, with the President, to review response plans.

“The truth of the matter is that we have a very good response coordination mechanism involving the Office of the NSA, public health measures and the task force, and that has served us well. “In fact, we are a large country, and I travel a lot. We have one case, and even that one case came from outside our country.