The National Council on Health will on Monday meet to find out workable modalities that will curtail further spread of the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) in Nigeria.
According to Federal Ministry of Health officials, the council, which comprise all the 36 state Commissioners for Health, including the FCT, is expected to focus on novel strategies that will ensure that the disease does not spread outside the current locations where there are confirmed cases.
The emergency meeting which will kick start after an update on the Ebola outbreak will afford Commissioners for Health across the states to appraise the situation in their respective states.
The minister of state for health, Dr Khaliru Hassan, who disclosed this yesterday in Abuja, said the council of health meeting comprising the commissioners have become imperative to intimate the states on the measure to take to prevent further outbreak or spread to other states.
Following the inauguration of a committee which include the National Primary Health Care Development Agency, the agency has called for a one-day sensitisation meeting with chief executive officers of state primary health care development agency, board and zonal coordinators.
Meanwhile, the Liberian ambassador to Nigeria, Mr Al-Hassan Conteh, has decried the rising spate of harassment and stereotyping being meted out against his citizens because of the particular case of the Liberian man, Patrick Sawyer who brought Ebola virus into Nigeria.
Ambassador Conteh was speaking in response to the Nigerian Health Minister; Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu’s commendation of the Nigerian press for exhibiting statesmanship and responsibility in the reportage of the Ebola Virus.
“The attention of our embassy has been brought to several cases of harassment on Liberians based on stereotype and collective guilt. I think it is important we indicate in our campaigns that association does not mean causation,” said Conteh.
“That the index case is from Liberia does not mean that all Liberians in Nigeria are infected with Ebola.”
