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"Ruling party, opposition trade words over success at containing virus
Although there is no single case of the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) in
the country and not a single contact still under surveillance, by the
World Health Organisation’s (WHO) protocol, the health authorities can
only epidemiologically declare the outbreak of the virus over in Nigeria
on October 20, 2014.
Responding to THISDAY’s enquiries sunday
following the confusion over the exact date Nigeria can be declared free
of Ebola, the Minister of Health, Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu, said the date
is calculated as 42 days (that is, 21 days multiplied by 2) after the
last case of EVD was discharged from the hospital.
It is for this reason the international media and WHO usually say the disease is “nearly contained” in Nigeria, he explained.
Onyebuchi, however, cautioned that though there is a WHO protocol for declaring a country Ebola-free, he termed it theoretical.
Explaining, he said: “Like I said in my speech two weeks ago at the UN
General Assembly, as long as there is a single case of Ebola in any part
of the world, every country is at risk.
“So this is really
theoretical and countries would still have to take the necessary
precautionary measures to guard against the outbreak of the virus in
their territories.
“As you can see what happened in Texas, where
we have a Liberian who flew in with the disease, although he was not
symptomatic at the time he arrived the US.
“We also have a large
Nigerian community in Texas, so we could still be at risk if a Nigerian
contracts it from that place and comes home with it undetected. It is a
risk that every country faces as long as other countries continue to
combat Ebola outbreaks.”
Since the outbreak of the virus in Nigeria, the country has recorded 19 confirmed cases and seven deaths.
The country has also been praised by WHO and the international
community for its rapid response and deployment of health care workers
in the containment of the virus.
However, the All Progressives
Congress (APC) and the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) were at
each other’s throats yesterday, following the opposition’s statement
asking President Goodluck Jonathan and the PDP to stop taking credit for
the country's successful containment of the Ebola virus.
APC
said if anyone should be given credit for the containment of the
disease, it should be the late Dr. Stella Adadevoh and her colleagues at
the First Consultants Medical Centre, officials of the Ministries of
Health in Lagos and Rivers States and the patriotic Nigerian volunteers.
It also gave credit to the Minister of Health for his outstanding performance in dealing with the virus.
In a statement issued yesterday by APC’s National Publicity Secretary,
Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said it amounts to sheer dishonesty for
the duo to turn what was a collective effort to a PDP campaign issue.
According to APC, the president and his party were wrong to have
appropriated the credit for the successful containment of the EVD
without giving due credit to the real heroes of the successful battle:
Adadevoh and her colleagues at the First Consultants; officials of the
Ministries of Health in Lagos and Rivers States and the patriotic
Nigerian volunteers, among others.
It described as a cheap shot
and a shameless venture the president's decision to make the Ebola
success story a campaign issue during a PDP rally in Benin, giving the
impression that only the PDP deserves the credit for the successful
containment of the disease.
APC said while “indeed Health
Minister Onyebuchi Chukwu exhibited the kind of professionalism and
purposefulness that is not common with the Jonathan administration
during the battle against Ebola, it will be uncharitable for the PDP-led
federal government to pretend as if the government of the two affected
states did nothing”.
The party reminded the president that the
two states hit by Ebola, Lagos and Rivers, are APC states, and that the
promptness, purposefulness, doggedness and determination shown by the
governors of the states contributed largely to the successful
containment of the virulent disease.
“The cities of Lagos and
Port Harcourt are perhaps the largest metropolis to have ever been hit
by the EVD since the first outbreak was recorded in the Democratic
Republic of Congo almost 40 years ago, and any mishandling of the
disease could have spelt disaster not just for the cities but for the
country as a whole.
“But the ever-dogged and determined Governors
Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State and Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State
employed the same winning strategies that have stood their states out of
the pack and quickly rose to the occasion, putting in place measures
that ensured a quick curtailing of the EVD spread.
“The measures
included painstaking contact-tracing, unrelenting follow ups and
creative treatment of infected patients even without access to the
experimental drug Zmapp.
“There is no doubt that Nigeria is
fortunate that the EVD outbreaks were recorded in those two states. It
is a measure of the high premium that the chief executives of the states
place on human lives, a testimony to the strong health systems they are
building and an indication of their purposeful approach to governance
that they successfully contained the disease, thus earning Nigeria rare
accolades from the global community.
“Unlike the president and
the PDP, we will also like to give credit to the Minister of Health,
Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu, for acting out of character with the do-nothing
Jonathan administration.
“We hope President Jonathan and his
party will stop making the Ebola success story in which opposition
states were the main actors a fulcrum of their campaign for the 2015
general election. They cannot and should not take credit for the
containment of Ebola in Nigeria,'' APC said.
The party also advised Jonathan not to use the Ebola containment effort as another tool to divide Nigerians along party lines.
“President Jonathan is the most divisive president in Nigeria's
history. He inherited a united Nigeria, but has divided the country
along ethnic and religious lines on the altar of selfish personal
ambition and short-term opportunism.
“It will amount to a
monumental tragedy if the president were again to use the Ebola success
story, which has earned Nigeria rare acclamations from the global
community as a tool to further divide Nigerians,” it said.
In its
response, however, PDP accused the main opposition party of attempting
to discredit the PDP-led federal government and relegate its efforts in
the containment of the disease in Nigeria.
PDP National Publicity
Secretary, Olisa Metuh, in a statement yesterday said APC was
frustrated and unhappy because Nigerians are happy with the PDP-led
federal government for “the speed and energy with which it tackled the
scourge and brought it under control”.
“We know that the APC
prefers that the Ebola scourge continued unabated in Nigeria so as to
have what to blame the PDP-led government for. Now that it has been
contained, the APC is frustrated because the people are happy with
President Goodluck Jonathan and the PDP-led federal government for the
proactive manner with which the disease was confronted and overcame,”
the party said.
The PDP insisted that the national success
recorded on Ebola was because the president refused to politicise the
issue but took the bull by the horn through an aggressive multi-sectoral
approach for treatment, awareness and control to the admiration of all
Nigerians and the international community.
The ruling party said
it was public knowledge that immediately the disease surfaced in the
country, the PDP-led federal government swung into action and
coordinated intervention efforts with the Lagos State Government,
Nigerian medical personnel and international health organisations to
bring it under control.
“The PDP makes bold to state that the
multi-sectoral approach deployed by the federal government with the
concerted collaboration of the Federal Ministries of Health, Aviation,
Information, Education, Transport and other relevant agencies such as
the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) for intensive screening,
quarantine and treatment efforts as well as the massive awareness which
ended the spread of the disease and resulted in its containment in our
country.
“We are also amused by the contradictions in the APC’s
statement in which it also commended the roles played by the Honourable
Minister of Health, Professor Onyebuchi Chukwu, in the containment
effort. We ask, is the minister not appointed and supervised by
President Goodluck Jonathan? Is he not of the PDP? Or is the APC now
trying to appropriate him?
“Apart from concerted collaborations
using the Federal Ministry of Health, it is on record that President
Jonathan released N200 million each to Lagos and Rivers States to help
in fighting the disease, including improvement of health facilities and
public enlightenment across board.
“At every point, the president
recognised the efforts of all Nigerians especially the medical
personnel including the brave and courageous Dr. Ameyo Stella Adedavoh
and all the doctors and nurses who made sacrifices in containing the
virus.
“It is also on record that at no time did the PDP or the
president relegate the contributions of the Lagos State Government on
Ebola.
“The president acknowledged the Nigerian spirit which made
the citizens put their religious, political and ethnic differences
aside in fighting this common enemy.
“This includes PDP national
officers who personally and collectively engaged in various activities
in containing the scourge including creating awareness through the #EBOLAIceBucketChallenge and personal financial donations while the APC was busy seeking political capital out of the unfortunate situation.
“However, what the APC must understand is that Nigerians and indeed the
international community are happy with the President Goodluck
Jonathan-led PDP administration on the rapid response and eventual
containment of the Ebola Virus Disease, and no amount of propaganda and
blackmail will take this away,” the PDP said.
Calling on
Nigerians to be wary of the APC propaganda mill, the PDP recalled how
the opposition party attempted to gain political capital out of the
unfortunate abduction of the Chibok schoolgirls, which happened because
the APC state government refused to heed the advice of the Federal
Ministry of Education against using the Chibok school as the WAEC
examination centre.
It insisted that the success in containing
the Ebola virus was made possible because the federal government swung
into action, not allowing any room for Nigerians to be misled by
anybody.
PDP advised the APC “to learn to keep quiet if it has
nothing to offer and desist from always trying to divide Nigerians by
politicising serious national issues for selfish and unpatriotic
reasons”.
“Finally, we must continue to give the credit of the
Ebola victory to the Nigerian spirit; the spirit that unites and binds
us together through all our challenges as a people. Indeed, if we
overcame Ebola, then we can overcome all our present challenges no
matter how insurmountable they may appear.
Source: #Thisday_News.
Source: #Thisday_News.
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