The Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) has tightened its disease surveillance system in response to reported cases of the resurgence of Ebola and other communicable 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 disease 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 Ebola viral disease, which is a big global disease of public health concern, though it is not yet witnessed in Nigeria except for the last case in 2014, but we are aware that there is already an outbreak in DRC Congo, with so much consequences from quite a number of deaths, and closure of schools. So, here (FCT) we have executed a high alert mode even though we have not witnessed any case yet.
“So, proactive measures have been taken. Our surveillance system is heightened, and the FCT Administration bought quite a number commodities particularly for these key diseases like Cholera that we witnessed in 2021. We went on advocacy visits to key stakeholders especially in those Area Councils that had high potent of the disease during the outbreak such as AMAC, Kuje and Bwari,” Dr Sadiq stated.
