Nigeria has now recorded seven (7) confirmed
cases of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD). The first
one was the index case-the imported case
from Liberia of which the victim is now late.
Yesterday, 5th August, 2014, the first known
Nigerian to die of the EVD was recorded and
this was one of the nurses that attended to the
Liberian. The other five cases are currently
being treated at the Isolation ward in Lagos.
It is pertinent to note that: i. All the Nigerians
diagnosed of the EVD were primary contacts of
the index case. ii. The 24/7 Emergency
Operations Centre which I intimated you of in
my last press
conference will be fully functional by tomorrow.
It will be headed by Dr. Faisal Shuaibu as the
Incident Manager. He will later today lead a 6-
man inter-agency team drawn from National
Primary Health Care
Development Agency (NPHCDA), the US CDC,
the WHO, UNICEF and the Bill and Melinda
Gates Foundation to Lagos to complete the
setting up of the Centre. They will be joined by
the other personnel from the Lagos State
Government and the federal hospitals in the
Lagos area as well as the Nigeria Centre for
Disease Control.
I have also appointed a Director of
Communication and Community Mobilization
who will be based in Lagos- Prof. O. Onajole of
the Lagos University Teaching Hospital. We
are embarking on recruiting additional health
personnel to strengthen the team who are
currently managing the situation in Lagos.
We are making arrangements to procure
Isolation tents to quicken the pace of providing
isolation wards in all the states of the
federation and the Federal Capital Territory.
We are also setting up a special team to
provide counseling and psychosocial support
to patients, identified contacts and their
families.
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