The federal government yesterday asked Nigerians not to celebrate the announcement of the containment of the Ebola Virus Disease yet, adding that the country was still at risk of the killer disease.
This is coming barely 24 hours after it had announced that only one person was left with the disease in the country.
According to the FG, Nigeria is not free of the public health hazard yet until the one patient who is currently undergoing treatment and a number of others under surveillance are certified free of the disease.
Minister of Information, Labaran Maku and his Health counterpart, Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu, stated this after the weekly Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting presided over by President Goodluck Jonathan.
Addressing State House correspondents, Chukwu, who said he gave FEC an update on the fight against Ebola in the country as instructed by the president that he should do so in his weekly report, noted that 13 cases had been reported till date in the country.
He said, “Let me just say that I don’t want us in Nigeria to move from panic to euphoria. The media has been working so well with us and we commend them for tha,t but some of the headlines today (Wednesday) suggest that you may push the public to euphoria which again will be a problem.
“Yes, Nigeria is doing well on containment. Containment is like you have got an animal into a cage, but it is not yet dead. But at least, you now know where to concentrate than when that animal was roaming. That is what we have achieved.
“We now know where the disease is in Nigeria. All of them so far in Nigeria have been traced to Mr. Patrick Sawyer. But we know there is nothing stopping someone coming with a fresh case from anywhere in the world.
“That’s why we say Nigeria has been successful with containment. But have we eliminated the disease? No. Because as we speak, there is a case we are still managing and that case must also have had her own third degree contacts apart from the number of people that are still under surveillance.
“So, until we give a clean bill of health to every contact, we cannot really say that we have eliminated the disease,” he added.
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