The World Health Organisation, WHO, and Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State have warned the Federal Government on its decision that primary and secondary schools across the country should resume academic activities on 22 September, 2014.
Speaking during a courtesy visit to Lagos State Governor, Babatunde Fashola, at the State House in Alausa on Thursday, 11 September, 2014, WHO Country Representative in Nigeria, Rui Van Gaz asked the federal government to review the resumption date until the scourge of the Ebola virus has been properly contained.
According to Thisday reports, Gaz advised the FG to ensure that the schools are fully prepared in terms of availability of water, soaps and sanitizers among other things to prevent the spread of the deadly Ebola virus in Nigerian schools.
“The teachers must be fully aware of what is needed to be done when they are faced with any suspected case of Ebola Virus in their schools. The students must be enlightened about the symptoms of the deadly virus.
“Even though the number of Ebola Virus cases has reduced, most of the contacts are out of the 21 days. We should avoid any form of complacency until the last case is over and we have completed the surveillance to ensure that no other potential case.
“We should not relent in the effort to tackling the dreaded virus. We need to learn from this experience by not only dealing with the disease but to strengthen the entire health system in the federation,” the diplomat said.
Gaz added that the global health institutions are impressed with Lagos state government for its outstanding efforts towards the containment of the Ebola virus.
He advised the state government to avoid being complacent due to the apparent drop in the number of the virus cases, noting that the war against Ebola has not been won until the virus is entirely wiped out.
Speaking at the occasion, Fashola stated that the Lagos State government might review the resumption date, which he said, was fixed by the federal government without due consultation.
The governor said the state government “is in the process of ascertaining through scientific risk evaluation, whether it will accept the date announced by the federal government.”
Fashola added that the issue of schools resumption was among issues to be discussed when the state executive council meet later on Thursday.
He explained that if evaluation “shows that children will be at risk on resumption, the state schools will not open, even though the federal government had set September 22 for the same purpose.”
It would be recalled that the Nigerian House of Representatives on Wednesday said it has asked its Committee on Education to take another look at the resumption date announced for private and public schools in the country.
According to reports, the decision of the lawmakers is necessitated by growing concerns among the public, especially parents and guardians of students, over the recent decision by the education authorities to reopen schools for the 2014/2015 academic session on Monday, September 22, 2014 despite the threat of the Ebola Virus Disease which has killed seven people in Nigeria.
The Ebola virus was brought into Nigeria by the late Liberian diplomat, Patrick Sawyer, no fewer than seven people have been reported to have died from the disease. 19 others were also said to have been confirmed to be infected with the disease in Lagos and Rivers State.
Apart from Nigeria, other West African countries affected by the outbreak are Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Senegal.
A recent research conducted by the University of Oxford warned that if more efforts are not committed to fight the deadly disease that it could spread to at least 15 other African countries sooner than later.
Few weeks ago, the WHO raised alarm that the Ebola virus could infect no fewer than 20, 000 people before the end of the year, saying about 2,300 people have already contracted the disease since February 2014.
