The Federal Government has assured Nigerians that the country’s only confirmed Ebola case is being contained, urging the public not to succumb to “hysteria or panic” over the development.
The Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Prof. Muhammad Pate, gave the assurance on Wednesday evening while speaking to State House correspondents after a meeting with the Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila, at the Presidential Villa in Abuja.
Pate said the government was working with Uganda and tracing contacts of the infected person to prevent further transmission of the virus.
“All I can tell you is that we are collaborating with our sister African nation of Uganda.
“What is important is that we have found this one case.
“We are doing contact tracing, and we are putting containment measures to ensure that it doesn’t go into our population,” he said.
The minister urged Nigerians to remain vigilant, expressing confidence in the country’s public health institutions and their capacity to manage the situation.
“The Federal Government has competent authorities to deal with this. We have done it in 2014, and we have good public health institutions. Nigerians should be reassured.
“We must be vigilant, but not panic. People should respect public health information from trusted sources and not spread misinformation and false rumours,” Pate added.
He promised to provide regular updates on the situation, saying the government would communicate any significant developments to the public.
“We will be truthful to Nigerians with the information that we receive on a daily basis. If the situation changes, we will come out and inform Nigerians,” he said.
Pate disclosed that the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDC) had activated its incident management system and was working round the clock, while the Presidential Task Force on Ebola remained active.
He noted that the outbreak had lasted five months without a confirmed case in Nigeria before the latest development, adding that other countries had also dealt with Ebola cases.
“It’s one case. It’s an imported case, and we are containing it,” he said.
On the review of Nigeria’s response plans, the minister said the process was already underway, praising the coordination among public health authorities, the Office of the National Security Adviser and the presidential task force.
“That has been ongoing. The truth of the matter is that we have a very good response coordination mechanism with the office of the NSA, with the public health measures, with the task force, and that has served us well,” he said.
Pate added that Nigeria’s size made effective coordination essential, noting that the authorities had detected and reported the imported case and were taking steps to contain it.
He said the government would hold another meeting on Thursday to review the situation.
The minister also criticised what he described as excessive public concern over the case, saying he had spoken on Wednesday with the person who discovered the virus 50 years ago.
He cited previous responses to Ebola outbreaks in Uganda, Kenya and France, arguing that public reactions should be informed by a broader understanding of how countries manage the disease.
Pate stressed that an effective response required discipline, proper implementation of public health measures and public cooperation.
“We’ve got the resources, we’ve got the backing of our president, we’ve got the mechanisms of cross institutions,” he said.
He warned that the government could not effectively enforce containment measures if individuals instructed to self-isolate ignored the directives and continued visiting public places, including markets.
“That is not in the government’s hands,” he said.
The Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Immigration Service, Kemi Nandap, and the Managing Director of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, Olubunmi Kuku, were also seen leaving the meeting.
Pate had announced on Tuesday that laboratory tests confirmed Ebola in a woman who recently returned from Uganda, according to Voice of Nigeria.
The woman reportedly developed symptoms on October 7 and sought treatment at a private hospital on October 11. Pate said she was stable and in isolation, while 44 contacts were being monitored.
The World Health Organisation identified the virus as the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola.
On May 16, the WHO declared the outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda a public health emergency of international concern.
As of October 11, the Democratic Republic of the Congo had recorded 9,066 confirmed cases and 4,381 deaths, according to WHO figures cited by Newsweek.
The WHO says there is no approved vaccine or specific treatment for Bundibugyo virus disease. Kenya also confirmed an imported case this month, Al Jazeera reported.
On June 9, President Bola Tinubu established a presidential task force chaired by Gbajabiamila and approved N10bn for emergency preparedness.
The measures include enhanced screening at airports, QR-code health declarations for passengers arriving from high-risk countries, and isolation centres at the Lagos and Abuja airports.
At the task force’s inauguration on June 18, Gbajabiamila said Nigeria had no confirmed cases at the time and stressed the need to prevent a repeat of the circumstances surrounding the previous outbreak, when an infected person entered the country.
