The latest report by NOIPolls Limited, on a survey conducted last week, has revealed that seven out of ten (72 percent) adult Nigerians are in doubt of the ability of Nigeria’s local health professionals to effectively care and manage patients with Ebola virus disease. Due to the rapid and high mortality rate related to the sickness, majority of Nigerians now dread the disease mre than other like HIV and hepatitis. According to the NOIPoll survey result, 82 percent of those polled are currently more concerned about the Ebola virus disease than other infectious diseases such as HIV (8 percent) and hepatitis (3 percent). The poll showed that majority of Nigerians (91 percent of the survey respondents) are now aware of the disease outbreak and that most people (80 percent of respondents) are afraid the disease may spread more, with about 57 percent of them expressing confidence in the ability of the Federal Ministry of Health and its agencies to effectively check the spread of the disease.
Ebola virus disease (EVD), previously known as Ebola haemorrhagic fever is a serious, often fatal illness in humans with a fatality rate of up to 90 percent. Current knowledge is that EVD outbreaks are started when the Ebola virus is introduced into human populations through close contact with the blood, secretions, organs or other bodily fluids of infected animals such as chimpanzees, gorillas, fruit bats, monkeys, forest antelope and porcupines found ill or dead or in the rain forest.[eap_ad_2]
The disease then spreads in the affected community primarily through human-to-human transmission, with infection resulting from direct contact (through broken skin or mucous membranes) with the blood, secretions, organs or other bodily fluids of infected people, and indirect contact with environments contaminated with such fluid. Burial ceremonies in which mourners have direct contact with the body of the deceased person present a particularly large risk for the transmission of Ebola.
The Ebola virus was first imported into Nigeria by the late Liberian-born American, Patrick Sawyer, who arrived in Lagos on the 20th of July 2014 and died five days later after being diagnosed with the Ebola virus at First Consultants Hospital in Obalende, Lagos State. By the 17th of August 2014, 26 days after the emergence of Ebola in Nigeria, the Federal Government of Nigeria has confirmed 169 people under surveillance, six cases of undergoing treatment and now five deaths including the index case, Patrick Sawyer.
Major concerns about Ebola in Nigeria include widespread fear of the disease, limited availability of the right public health education, the on-going doctors’ strike and subsequent sack of resident doctors in public hospitals, non-adherence to standard infection control protocols in Nigerian hospitals, lack of personal protective equipment for health care workers and the general poor sanitation practices across the country.[eap_ad_3]
