As Guinea, Nigeria’s co-West African country is cringing
over the spread to the country yesterday of Marbug virus, said to be deadlier
than Ebola, the Director-General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control
(NCDC), Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu has assured Nigerians that the country “is at low
risk of its outbreak.”
Guinea is the first West African country to record a case of
the highly infectious disease that causes haemorrhagic fever, and it is in the
same family as the virus that causes Ebola.
Ihekweazu spoke following the reported outbreak of the virus
in Guinea.
According to the NCDC boss, the center is collaborating with
sister West African health organisations and the Center for African Disease
Control to extend needed support to combat the virus.
“We are very aware and it tells us that we have to always be
on our guard here. We set up a risk analysis team yesterday, evaluated the risk
for Nigeria. It is low at the moment.
“What we did is to make sure that we have the facilities to
detect this if there were to be a suspect case. We are watching out for
travellers and working with our colleagues in the Port Health Services to look
at the travel history of individuals,” he said.
While yet to detect a case in Nigeria, he counseled that,
“We need to learn to do the simple things while not losing the beautiful aspect
of our culture that mingles us together.
“Right now, if it is our culture to have a big ceremony like
a wedding that puts together thousands of people into an enclosed space, the
fact is that within the context of COVID that will expose you and your guest to
significant risk.
“You have to mitigate those risks by limiting the number of
people you are inviting, insisting on masks wearing, insist on a certain level
of distancing. There is a conflict between our culture at the moment and the
threat that we face.”
He, however, assured that preemptory steps to contain it if
detected in Nigeria were “already afoot in the proactive system of approach of
the center.”
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