The Federal Government on Wednesday assured Nigerians that it is putting plans in place to recruit 490 environmental health officers who will be deployed to borders as part of strategies being employed to fight the deadly Ebola Virus Disease. 

The government also pledged to train some other more health officers across the states of the federation to help educate the people on how to prevent the spread of the disease and other related diseases in the country.

Minister of Environment, Mrs. Laurentia Laraba-Mallam, gave this hint at the inauguration of the 11-member Board of the Environmental Health Officers Registration Council of Nigeria in Abuja. 

She however called on Nigerians to co-operate with government and be conscious of their environment, adding that as Nigerians, “we have to keep our environment healthy and clean at all time.”

Laraba-Mallam explained that the importance of the environmental health officer as a preventive health worker is accepted globally.

She said, “The inauguration was coming up at a time when improvement in various components of environmental health is of utmost public concern due mainly to the abysmal situation of such public concerns in areas like waste management, global warming, climate change, poverty alleviation and general environmental protection.”

The Chairman, Environmental Health Officers Registration Council of Nigeria, Prof. Oladapo Afolabi who was also present at the inauguration noted that the importance of environmental health especially in this era of emerging new diseases cannot be over emphasized.

He said, “Now that we have Ebola epidemic in our hands, we should not allow what happened in malaria control happen, instead, we should have Ebola control.”