NIGERIA CONSIDERS FLIGHT RESTRICTIONS FROM UGANDA, DR CONGO OVER EBOLA SPREAD
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Nigerian officials are considering possible flight limits from Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and South Sudan—countries dealing with an Ebola outbreak—in an effort to stop the disease from spreading.
On Thursday, a top–level meeting was held in Victoria Island, Lagos, to look over Nigeria’s plans and actions for dealing with Ebola.
Some officials in the meeting included Jide Idris, director general of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDC); Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, minister of interior; Femi Gbajabiamila, chief of staff to the president; and Akin Abayomi, Lagos commissioner for health.
After the meeting, Gbajabiamila said President Bola Tinubu had been briefed on the current Ebola situation in the affected African countries, and assured that the federal government would take all necessary steps to ensure that Nigeria does not record any case.
“We have a health scare, which is Ebola, and we all know what happened the last time. The cases are getting worse, internationally and worldwide, and we don’t want to leave anything to chance,” the chief of staff said.
“There were three, four areas we looked at. We looked at the issue of possibility, as of now, of restricting flights from countries of interest. We looked at the possibilities of isolating passengers who may exhibit symptoms of Ebola.
“We looked at the possibility of isolating or using the cargo terminal to deal with passengers that are coming in from those areas, and of course, putting certain things in place, protocols in place; we believe that prevention is better than cure, and where some passengers slip through the cracks, then we must have ways of dealing with situations such as that.”
Tunji-Ojo said all points of entry into the country would be under strict monitoring.
He added that the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) would work closely with the NCDC to enhance early detection and rapid response measures.
The NCDC director general noted that preparedness plans have been activated across all 36 states, with public awareness campaigns to be intensified to educate citizens on prevention and response protocols.
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