By Harry Awurumibe Editor, ABUJA BUREAU
The West African Health Organisation (WAHO) chieftains are brainstorming in Abuja to fashion out ways to tackle health issues especially epidemics like Ebola in the sub-region.
This much was disclosed Tuesday at Barcelona hotels, Abuja by the Director General of WAHO, Professor Stanley Okolo, who disclosed to the media at the first session of the Annual Meeting of National Coordinating Institutions of ECOWAS Member States that the 4-day conference is aimed among other things to discuss and validate the Regional Epidemic and Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Plan.
Okolo also said that the representatives of the 15 countries in West Africa including Nigeria will discuss three key issues which include how best to transfer and transport medical samples of diseases from one point to the other without much problems.
He however said that ECOWAS region is doing well to prevent the outbreak of epidemics in her territories by the establishment of 12 super laboratories to handle to analyse epidemics whenever it breaks out. He disclosed that Nigeria has some of the laboratories. Edo state and Vom in Plateau state have laboratories to test human and animal diseases.
Also speaking at the occasion, Dr. Carlos Brito, Director, Public Health & Nutrition in WAHO said that the conference will discuss the ECOWAS inter- Institutions Communication Strategy and deliberate on the Regulation on the Shipment of biological samples in the ECOWAS Region.
Health experts from Burkina Faso, Ghana, Mali, Sierra Leon, Liberia, Cote D’ Ivoire among others are attending the conference.
