Africa CDC Director-General Dr Jean Kaseya says international partners have paid insufficient attention to developing a vaccine against the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola.
The Federal Government says it is strengthening Nigeria’s Ebola response through contact tracing, surveillance and emergency preparedness following confirmation of an imported case in the Federal Capital Territory.
The Chairman of the Presidential Task Force on Ebola Preparedness and Emerging Public Health Threats, Femi Gbajabiamila, gave the assurance after the task force’s emergency meeting at the State House on Wednesday.
Gbajabiamila said the task force had been working since its inauguration in June, adding that existing surveillance measures helped health authorities identify the case quickly.
He said the infected passenger initially showed no symptoms, which developed four days after she arrived in Abuja, and credited established protocols with facilitating her identification.
Gbajabiamila said the task force would strengthen existing protocols and enforce them more rigorously. He also urged Nigerians to cooperate with public health authorities and avoid panic.
The Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Professor Muhammad Ali Pate, said health authorities had intensified contact tracing and were isolating contacts of the confirmed case.
Pate said the Federal Government, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, the World Health Organisation and the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention had activated their incident management systems to coordinate the response.
He added that hospitals and other health facilities were preparing to manage cases, while states were mobilising their response plans.
Pate urged Nigerians to follow public health directives and avoid spreading misinformation, saying cooperation between authorities and communities would be essential to containing the outbreak.
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Nigeria confirmed its first imported case of Bundibugyo Ebola in the FCT on Tuesday. The patient, a woman who had recently travelled to Uganda, tested positive for the virus, while health authorities identified 44 contacts for monitoring.
Uganda’s Ministry of Health has disputed reports of an Ebola outbreak in the country, saying the source of the patient’s infection remains under investigation and that travel through Uganda alone does not establish where she contracted the virus.
By News Scope Africa
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