The Ministry of Environment at the instance of the House of Representatives Committee on Environment has declared a national emergency on sanitation and hygiene, as part of measures to curb the spread of Ebola virus.
This was the aftermath of an environmental intervention meeting convened by the Committee on Environment to brainstorm with relevant authorities on appropriate actions to curb the spread of the Ebola disease in Nigeria.
Key among the issues raised were the need to tackle the root cause of the spread, reduce animals to human contact in Nigeria and widespread enlightenment on sanitation and hygiene.
The Chairman of the House Committee on Environment, Uche Ekwunife, said that the Ebola disease was environment related and Nigeria’s concentration on curative care instead of prevention might be counter-productive.
She charged environmental health officers to carry out fumigation of public places nationwide to reduce the habitation of bats and other pests.
Officers from the environmental health council and the national park took it a step further by asking for immediate review of waste disposal system and testing of host animals, such as bats, to ensure Nigerian communities were safe.
Other recommendations made by the health officials were the control of avoidable public crowd, public enlightenment to stop Nigerians from the culture of visiting sick relatives or lying in state at burials when the cause of death is not certain and the reduction of the population of bats in Nigeria.
