Federal Government is considering restricting flights from countries affected by the Ebola virus as part of renewed measures to prevent any possible outbreak in Nigeria.
This was disclosed on Thursday by the Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila, after a high-level strategic meeting held in Victoria Island, Lagos, to review the country’s Ebola preparedness and response systems.
Gbajabiamila said the proposed travel restrictions would be complemented by stricter screening and isolation of passengers showing symptoms of Ebola at Nigeria’s entry points.
The meeting had in attendance senior government officials, including the Director-General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDC), Dr. Jide Idris; Minister of Interior, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo; and Lagos State Commissioner for Health, Prof. Akin Abayomi, among others.
He also disclosed that President Bola Tinubu had been briefed on Ebola outbreaks in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda, assuring that the government would take all necessary precautions to prevent any case in Nigeria.
According to him, the administration is strengthening surveillance, response capacity, and coordination among relevant agencies to protect public health.
“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.
“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,” he said.
