Thursday, September 4, 2014

296 People Under Surveillance for Ebola in Nigeria - Minister of Health

 


The Federal Government yesterday Wednesday September 3rd, made it known that the resumption of primary and secondary schools across which was ealier delayed till October 13th, because of the Ebola Virus, has now been reversed to mid September.

     Speaking with News Men after the Federal Executive Council meeting presided by President Goodluck Jonathan, the honourable Minister of Health, Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu, revealed that schools resumption date might be moved back to September. He stressed that experts’ opinion had indicated that “students could safely resume from mid-September.”

     The minister further revealed that the specific resumption date will be announced after a meeting between the Minister of Education, states’ Commissioners of Education and other stakeholders involved in the earlier postponement of the resumption date to October 13th. Concerning this, he said;

“The Minister of Education was directed by council to convene an emergency meeting with all states commissioners of Education in order to agree on when schools can resume nationwide.”

   The Minister also gave a report on the Ebola Virus Disease outbreak in Nigeria, reporting. That there were currently 296 contacts under surveillance in the country, but denying.that 60 Ebola contacts were missing in Port Harcourt. He continued by saying the 296 contacts were actually under surveillance in the entire country, 255 of them were in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, and the remaining 41 in Lagos State. He also added that explained that the rumoured outbreak of the disease in Abuja and Calabar are false, and that Enugu was completely free from the disease. This was because the nurse who initially escaped surveillance in Lagos to meet her husband in Enugu had also tested negative to the disease.

     He said the member of ECOWAS staff, Olu-Ibukun Koye, who jumped surveillance and took the virus to Port Harcourt, had developed strong anti-bodies against the virus and as such could not infect others with it.
He said it could not yet be determined if Koye would be prosecuted or not.

  In addition contrary to what several news agencies are reporting, the widow of Dr Enemuo is not dead, but rather she is still at the Ebola Isolation ward in Lagos.

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