Posted by The Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) has tightened its disease surveillance system in response to reported cases of the reappearance of Ebola and other infectious diseases like Cholera, Mpox, meningitis, measles, and COVID-19 in order to lessen its impact.
To that end, the FCT Health and Human Services Secretariat’s (HHSS) Epidemiological Division of the Public Health Department has issued a red alert to its staff.
This information was provided to the media in Abuja during a briefing on the readiness and response of the FCTA health sector by Dr. Sadiq Abdulrahaman, Director of the FCT Public Health Department.
Dr. Sadiq claims that the FCT is in a state of high alert even though there haven’t been any significant illness outbreaks there in the last year.
He claimed that an ongoing or weekly review is conducted in collaboration with FCTA partners like the WHO, NCDC, and disease surveillance and notification officers, who serve as important frontline personnel at the level of the Area Councils.
“For the Ebola virus disease, which is a major worldwide public health concern and has only been detected in one instance in Nigeria so far (in 2014), we are aware that there is already an outbreak in the DRC Congo, with significant implications including quite a few fatalities and the closing of schools. Therefore, even if there hasn’t been a case reported yet, we (FCT) have operated in high alert mode.
Therefore, preemptive actions have been implemented. Our surveillance system has been strengthened, and the FCT Administration has purchased a significant amount of supplies specifically for these important diseases, like the cholera outbreak we saw in 2021. We made advocacy trips to important parties, particularly in Area Councils like AMAC, Kuje, and Bwari that had significant disease potency during the outbreak.