Nigeria not fully prepared for Ebola emergency, porous borders major disease risk – NCDC

NCDC Director-General Dr. Jide Idris says Nigeria is only 59 per cent prepared for a potential Ebola outbreak, warning that porous land borders remain the country’s biggest vulnerability.

The Director-General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDC), Dr. Jide Idris, has disclosed that Nigeria is currently only 59 per cent prepared to respond to a potential Ebola outbreak, despite ongoing efforts to strengthen the country’s public health response systems. Speaking during an interview on ARISE News on Monday, Idris cautioned that while progress has been made, Nigeria is not yet fully equipped to manage an Ebola emergency.

Idris identified international airports and the country’s extensive land borders as key areas of concern in disease surveillance and control, stressing that porous borders pose the greatest challenge. “Our recent latest level of assessment puts us at about 59 per cent. But that’s quite variable. You can’t be 100 per cent prepared, but the essence is that we keep preparing because things change,” he said. He added, “The essence of that is to control traffic into this country, especially traffic from airlines. Those states are where you have international airports because that’s where people come in. But the biggest one again is our borders — porous borders. Not everybody comes in by air. You have people migrating by road and that kind of thing. These are the scares, and that’s why again it’s essential for us to prepare.”

Reflecting on Nigeria’s successful containment of the 2014 Ebola outbreak, the NCDC boss said the experience strengthened the country’s approach to disease detection, isolation, contact tracing and emergency response. He noted that the agency has since expanded laboratory capacity, trained health workers and equipped high-risk states with testing materials and protective gear. “To be frank, we are not 100% ready, but we are improving our readiness,” Idris said. “This is a readiness that has to cover the whole country. We sent advisers to state commissioners to assess readiness and guide them on what to do, looking at infrastructure, isolation centres, public health emergency operation centres and stockpiles available in case of an outbreak.”

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