The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDC) says the country is only 59 per cent prepared for a possible Ebola outbreak, citing porous land borders as a major vulnerability.
The Director-General of the NCDC, Dr Jide Idris, disclosed this during an interview.
According to him, the agency’s latest preparedness assessment indicates that Nigeria has achieved about 59 per cent readiness for a potential Ebola emergency
“Our recent latest level of assessment puts us at about 59 per cent. But that’s quite variable.
“You can’t be 100 per cent prepared, but the essence is that we keep preparing because things change,” Idris said.
He noted that while surveillance measures were in place at international airports, Nigeria’s extensive and porous land borders posed a greater challenge to disease control efforts.
“The biggest one again is our borders, porous borders. Not everybody comes in by air. You have people migrating by road and that kind of thing.
These are the scares, and that’s why again it’s essential for us to prepare,” he said.
Idris said the agency was working with state governments to strengthen preparedness by assessing isolation centres, emergency response facilities and available medical stockpiles across the country.
“To be frank, we are not 100 per cent ready, but we are improving our readiness,” he added.
The NCDC boss also disclosed that the country was currently responding to between seven and eight disease outbreaks, including cholera and Lassa fever.
“Aside from Lassa fever, we are managing about seven to eight outbreaks in this country right now. Cholera is there; it’s killing people,” he said.
He urged state governments to take greater responsibility for disease prevention, surveillance and emergency preparedness to strengthen the nation’s public health response capacity.
