The Lagos State government has continued its preventive measures against the spread of the dreaded Ebola disease. In a warning message, the government cautioned private mortuary operators against accepting corpses which causes of death are not certified by qualified medical personnel and or pathologists to avoid unnecessary risk of exposure to the deadly Ebola Virus Disease (EVD).
The warning came as the controversies over the identity of the Liberian corpse brought into a hospital in Nkwelle Ezunaka, Oyi local government area of Anambra State, are yet to die down.
Commissioner for Health in Lagos State, Jide Idris, gave the warning while giving an update on the activities of the Joint Task Force on the EVD outbreak in the country.
He said categorically, “All the private mortuaries in Lagos State from now would need to be more careful.
“Any case that has no death certificate or any suspicious death certificate should not be handled by them, rather, should alert the State Ministry first”.
According to him, the Health Facility and Accreditation Monitoring Agency in collaboration with the Task Force is meeting with all Private Mortuary and Funeral Home Owners in the week to further empower them with information and protective equipment to assist in their work.
He added also that the Board of Traditional Medical Practitioners, faith-based organisations would equally be holding training programmes on what to look out for and know about the dreaded EVD. He advised operators of healing homes to show some high level of hygiene at this time to avoid contracting viral infections, which he said “could wipe off the clients as well as the healers”.
Corroborating him, Director for the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Professor Abdulsalami Nasidi, said, “it is untrue reports in some newspapers that certain herbs can cure Ebola or that claims for Ebola cure has been found”.
According to Nasidi, “Anyone who thinks he can dare it would only find out that both the healer and those seeking healing would be wiped out”.
He warned that the Federal Government is already considering taking litigations against such claims and write-ups.
Idris added though there is no new case of Ebola Virus in Nigeria, however, added, “An Ebola reporting system has been activated in order to facilitate early identification of suspected cases.
“The reporting system includes the establishment of the following: Toll-Free telephone Numbers-0800-ebola-help, 0800326524357; a web site-www.ebolaalert.org; Mobile app: EbolaCheckUp.ebolaalert.org; Twitter:@EbolaAlert and on facebook: www.facebook.co/EbolaAlert”.
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