The government of Nigeria’s south-eastern Rivers State has announced the donation of 5,000 complete set of Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs) to ECOWAS in support of Member States affected by the outbreak that has claimed more than 5,000 lives from the more than 13,000 reported cases, mainly in the region.
Rivers and Lagos States reported Ebola cases last July to September but along with support from the Federal Government and development partners successfully fought the scourge resulting in Nigeria being declared free of the disease by the World Health Organization (WHO) on 20th October 2014.
Announcing the PPEs donation on behalf of State Governor Chibuike Amaechi, while receiving an ECOWAS delegation in the Capital Port Harcourt on Friday 14 November 2014, Rivers Health Commissioner Dr. Sampson Parker also disclosed that the state is contributing 100 volunteer health workers to the pool of 500 pledged by Nigeria to assist ECOWAS countries affected by Ebola. Lagos State is also contributing more than 200 of the Nigerian volunteers due to travel to their respective countries of assignment.
“In making the contributions, as a gesture of solidarity, our Governor is assuring our brothers and sisters in the region and indeed, the whole world that there is hope; that Ebola can be defeated, going by our experience in Nigeria,” the Commission affirmed, He attributed Rivers State’s Ebola success to the robust political leadership, strong commitment of the health workers and support from development partners.
“Until we win the war, we cannot rest on our oars,” the Commissioner said, stressing the need for sustained alert so as not to lose the gains already achieved.
The Commissioner further disclosed that Rivers State, which recorded two Ebola deaths from four confirmed cases and 10 admissions with some 531 contacts traced, is still in a state of readiness with sustained sensitization and social mobilization, epidemiological surveillance and point of entry vigilance. He said the State Governor personally led the “war” with mass mobilization of health workers complemented by strong support of the Federal authorities and development partners such as the WHO, UNICEF, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Doctors without Borders, MSF, and the EU, which assisted with the establishment of a Laboratory.
The Rivers Ebola Emergency Operation Centre (EEOC) which coordinated the successful deployment of some 721 personnel during the emergency period on epidemiological surveillance, case management, social mobilization, and rigorous contact tracing, among others, is still operational.
The ECOWAS team led by Dr. Mariane Ngoulla, Special Health Adviser to the President of the ECOWAS Commission, and which included Mr. Paul Ejime of the Communication Directorate and two crews from the Mali-based Africable Television and the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), was in Rivers States on an information gathering mission to document the ECOWAS response and stakeholder interventions. The success stories, lessons learnt and the challenges from the Ebola outbreak would be documented in the video.
The team also visited Ghana where the members met with officials of the Government and the UN Ebola Emergency Response Mission (UNMEER) which is coordinating the UN response efforts from the regional hub in AccraAlso in Accra, the team visited one of the treatment centres at the Tema General Hospital prepared in readiness for any eventuality.
In Lagos, the ECOWAS team met with Health authorities and visited the treatment centre at Yaba and also met with an Ebola survivor. The State Epidemiologists Dr. Ismaila Abdulsalam along with his colleagues at the EEOC, who played major roles in the Ebola fight, took the team through the processes that resulted in the success stories in State.
The team, which also met with officials of other Ebola affected countries in Accra, and returns to Abuja for the gathering of additional information from Nigerian Federal health authorities for the production of the TV documentary.
The objective is to facilitate knowledge sharing, toward the strengthening of regional response mechanisms for health emergencies with mass community participation within the context of a citizen-driven Community under Vision 2020 of an ECOWAS of peoples.
