[ 2014-10-14 ]

Nigeria’s hard-earned lesson for quashing Ebola
When Liberian development consultant Patrick
Sawyer collapsed in the arrivals hall of Lagos
airport with the symptoms of Ebola in July, the
initial reaction, both inside and outside Nigeria,
was close to panic.

The fear was that Nigeria’s rickety,
overstretched health service would be unable to
contain the deadly virus. In a sign of the strains
the system was under, Nigerian doctors were on
strike for higher pay when Mr Sawyer entered the
country.

Against the odds, however, public health officials
say one of the world’s more chaotic nations has
provided an object lesson in how to deal with
Ebola. It is a lesson that could prove salutary
for western governments scrambling to come up with
their own response.

For public-health experts, the idea of Ebola
gaining a grip in Nigeria – Africa’s most
populous nation and largest economy – is a
nightmare scenario. There are 170m Nigerians,
eight times the combined population of Guinea,
Sierra Leone and Liberia, where the disease is
raging. The country’s peripatetic elites and
prolific traders have connections across the
globe.

Yet Nigeria has quashed its outbreak – and is
now just a week short of being clear of a live
case for 42 days, the period required by the World
Health Organisation before it can be officially
declared Ebola free.

Dr Simon Mardel, a global specialist in emerging
pathogens, describes the effects of the disease as
a series of vicious circles. These attack the
individual first and then the surrounding society,
he says. On both counts Nigeria appears to have
broken the cycle.

That outcome, far from assured at the outset, is
the result of a rare national effort that saw the
Lagos state government, federal institutions, the
private sector and global non-governmental
organisations all pulling in the same direction to
defeat the disease.

Source - FT

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