Executive Director of the World Health Organisation’s Health Emergencies Programme, Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu, says Nigeria must complete the required 42-day monitoring period before it can be declared free of Ebola.
Speaking in an interview with ARISE NEWS on Wednesday, Ihekweazu said the country must continue monitoring all 53 identified contacts of the Ebola patient for 21 days, followed by another 21-day period, in line with World Health Organisation protocols.
He said, “What it means still is that we have about 53 people, contacts, individuals with whom that individual had contact over the days that she was ill. And now we have to continue to follow each of them for 21 days and then require another 21 days, coming up to 42, in order to declare Nigeria Ebola-free.
“These are the standard protocols as defined by the World Health Organization, where I work, and which we use in every country around the world that has a similar incident.”
Ihekweazu explained that the medical evacuation of the Ebola patient to her country of origin was not an indication of inadequate treatment or management capacity in Nigeria.
He said, “On Tuesday we saw the medical evacuation of the patient from Nigeria to the country from which the patient came. This wasn’t as a response to any deficit in the management capacities in Nigeria.
“This was at the request of the country of origin of the case. She was medically evacuated yesterday, as we all saw.”
The WHO official also clarified that every confirmed case of Ebola is treated as an outbreak requiring a coordinated response because the disease belongs to a group of infections known as viral haemorrhagic fevers.
He said, “For certain diseases, a group of diseases we call the viral haemorrhagic fevers, of which Ebola is one of them, we consider every single case an equivalent of an outbreak and requiring a coordinated response.
“So, in this case, that’s exactly why we raised the alarm, supported the government to do what it needed to do to respond.”
Ihekweazu commended Nigeria’s response to the case, saying the country had taken appropriate measures, including rapid laboratory confirmation and effective case management.
He said, “On the response in the country, you know, I think we’ve advised the country to have appropriate response measures to this, and they have carried this out more or less to the letter. We’ve had excellent case management in Nigeria.
“Lab confirmation happened very quickly. We had a sequence happen very quickly. So I think appropriate measures have been carried out.
“Nigeria’s going to be proud of the response so far.”
Addressing concerns about whether political rallies and other public gatherings should be restricted, Ihekweazu said the WHO’s recommendations were based on technical assessments rather than political considerations.
He said, “We haven’t advised for any restriction of further gatherings. Our advice is never political.
“It’s always technical. And we will continue to support the government in this response.”
He added that the immediate priority was to monitor every identified contact daily, detect any possible further transmission early and respond appropriately.
“The key thing now is for every single contact that the patient had to be followed up every single day, that is happening, and to ensure that there’s no further transmission, if there is transmission, to detect it early and respond appropriately,” he said.
Ihekweazu urged Nigerians to trust the government and relevant health agencies, stressing that the response should remain focused on public health rather than become politicised.
He said, “So for now, I think the key thing is to keep this as a technical response, trust the government, trust these agencies. They are being supported by the World Health Organization in all ramifications of the response.
“And I’m confident that we can support the government to get this under control and not politicise this event at all.”
On the wider Ebola situation in Africa, Ihekweazu described the outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo as severe, disclosing that the country had recorded about 10,000 cases and nearly 5,000 deaths.
He said, “Unfortunately, we’re now at 10,000 cases and close to 5,000 deaths.
“We’re reporting 50 to 80 new confirmed cases every single day. So the situation is still very dire. This is a large part of the country, the east of the country.
“Eight provinces are affected, equivalent to eight states in Nigeria. This is over 1,000 square kilometres. So we’re in the sixth month of this outbreak.”
He said the WHO and its partners had supported the Congolese government in expanding its response capacity, including treatment facilities, laboratories and community engagement.
“At the moment, there are over 2,000 active beds, over 25 labs. The communication around the outbreak-affected areas with the community is very intense. So the response is scaling,” he said.
Ihekweazu also disclosed that vaccine trials involving three candidates had begun in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, describing the development as encouraging.
He said, “Last week, there was finally some good news. Together with many partners, we supported the government to start vaccine trials for three vaccine candidates in the DRC.
“So really, what the DRC needs now from all African countries is support and solidarity.”
He urged African countries to support the affected nation rather than engage in blame, noting that the outbreak had also resulted in cases being exported to other countries.
“We’ve seen cases exported to three countries, to Uganda, to Kenya. And now, all of these cases, the country has responded appropriately and prevented later outbreaks,” he said.
According to him, African countries must strengthen their public health systems and prepare for outbreaks instead of assuming that they can prevent every outbreak from occurring.
“It’s very unlikely that we’re going to prevent outbreaks from happening. So what you have to do is all the diligent work that our national public health agencies do in case time to prepare and respond,” he said.
He added that governments needed to invest in public health expertise, disease surveillance systems and emergency operations centres, despite the limited political visibility of such investments.
“The preparatory work that every country needs to do in building its human capacity, the expertise needed, the surveillance system, its emergency operation centres, is quiet work,” he said.
“And unfortunately, it’s also a challenge because, unfortunately, we can’t bring a governor or a president to cut the ribbon for this type of work. It is a diligent, quiet work done by people in the technical agencies, while the rest of the country does not.”
On vaccine development, Ihekweazu said the process was complex and required international scientific collaboration, adding that the trials in the Democratic Republic of the Congo were being led by a local research institute.
He said, “This particular strain of Ebola, there’s a new strain. This is only the third one reported.
“And so, you know, we’ve just got the trials in the DRC last week. It’s being led by an institute in the DRC, the INRB. So it’s an African-led effort.
“It’s proceeding well. This will be, if we get this vaccine and the trials are successful by the end of the year, this will be the fastest development of a new vaccine for Ebola that has ever happened.”
He said vaccine development required countries to pool their scientific expertise and resources, expressing hope that the ongoing work would produce a new vaccine against the strain.
Turning to technology, Ihekweazu said Nigeria could further strengthen disease surveillance and contact tracing by applying artificial intelligence to existing public health data systems.
He recalled that during his time at the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, the country’s surveillance infrastructure had been digitised to support real-time reporting of infectious diseases.
He said, “While I was at NCDC, we digitalised this surveillance infrastructure across the country to get real-time data on every single infectious disease flowing into the national, the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control. And we were then able to respond.
“I am confident that these systems have been developed even further since I left it five years ago. So I don’t have any real-time data on how well they’re working. But with the infrastructure we left behind, there’s no reason why at this point in time, we have not applied even further tech and the opportunity that AI provides to the tools we built up over many years.”
He explained that artificial intelligence could only be effective when reliable data had been collected and standardised for use by public health officials.
“In order to apply artificial intelligence to your data, you have to collect the data in the first place, standardise the data collection, and provide it to those that need to use it to make decisions,” he said.
Ihekweazu stressed that trained personnel and sustained investment in expertise remained more important than technology alone.
“So it’s the people. More than the AI, it’s the people, the expertise that needs constant development. And hopefully we will build on the excellent foundations of five years ago,” he said.
Boluwatife Enome
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