Indications have emerged that the Office of the National Security Adviser warned the Office of the Minister of Health of the grave implications of the Ebola virus to national security and the need for steps to be taken 10 days before the infamous visit of the Liberian, Patrick Sawyer, to Lagos

The NSA office in a letter dated July 10, 2014 alerted to the Minister of Health, Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu, to the need to follow a guideline against the Ebola virus, which according to the letter, was at the ‘doorstep of the country.’

It was stated in the letter with ref. no. NSA/A/208/C, signed by a senior officer in the NSA’s office, Brig. Gen. TT Waya (retd.), that the guideline was meant to provide a working plan to guide the health ministry to take proactive steps to combat any possible outbreak of the disease in Nigeria.

Waya stated further in the letter that the guideline was to further aid the minister to give necessary warnings and information to the citizenry as regards the Ebola threat.

It was also learnt that the ministry, the NSA’s office and the Presidential Communication, Command and Control at the State House were to hold joint briefings on the Ebola issue.

However, investigations revealed that the Plan of Action was yet to be followed 10 days before the sick Sawyer visited the country and infected health workers and others with the deadly virus.

The guidelines, presented in a summary form under the topic ‘Crisis Management Guidelines for Pandemics- Ebola’, attached as Annex ‘A’ to the letter, included three major areas: General Information, Communication and Looking Ahead.

Items listed under General Information include Introduction, History of Ebola, The West African Pandemic, Contingency Planning, Risk Analysis, Being Better Prepared, The Response Plans, Reinforcing the Crisis Response, Management of Information and Creation of Joint Communication Centre.

The guidelines also include the national response, communications with stakeholders, the role of the social media and local and international media.

The letter alerted the minister of the outbreak of the deadly virus and its high fatality figure in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. It said 367 persons out of a total of 600 infected died as at June 26, 2014, according to World Health Organisation reports.

It was observed further that a reported case of Ebola in Ghana called for steps to be taken in the event of an incident in the country.

The NSA latter read in part, “Last week, there was an isolated case reported in Ghana. With this development, Ebola disease could be said to be on Nigeria’s doorstep.

“An outbreak of the disease in Nigeria would obviously have security implications. Consequently, I am directed to forward to you the crisis Management Guidelines for your Ministry’s preparedness and response to an eventual outbreak of the disease.

“The guidelines will assist the Hon. Minister in preparing a working plan to deal with the outbreak as well as to warn and inform the public among others.”

Omexonomy: And what should he have done to stop it may be by closing all the airport and sea ports and roads allong the boaders.

urhoboman: Itz already DONE. We should just leave the poor man's soul to rest in peace. Apart from Mr Sawyer importing the disease, our porous borders are not exception. There myt b other cases of ebola in nigeria we are not aware of.

BetaThings:
When you say things like this, you give the impression that we are a country of illiterates
What have we done after Mr Sawyer came in?

Even Liberia has sealed up their capital - you can go to the hinterland to attend a burial and then come back to Monrovia
Schools have been shut

The UK called its Cobra meeting to address the issue
Do you think people in the UK are saying what should be done - close airport etc?
If we had planned tho
We should have started screening people (even if for temperature alone at the ports),
We could have picked up the signs as soon as Mr Sawyer came in

Think about it, we don't have many competent doctors but Ebola kills the few doctors that are available
We could have built several isolation centres
We could have trained more doctors on how to manage Ebola
We could have sensitised the people. The NNPC hospital incident was avoidable

Omexonomy: And what should he have done to stop it may be by closing all the airport and sea ports and roads allong the boaders.

candy:

Your post is annoying to say the least. *Guy had 10 whole days to set up testing and isolation unit at the airports. Mr Sawyer would've been quarantined without harming innocent citizens
*Enough time to go get personal protective equipments for the health workers deployed to the ports of entries
*10 days to have talks with Mr president and at least get emergency funding for the projects.
*Mr president had enough time to deploy millitary personnels to some known illegal border routes and seal them.
* All the meetings they are just holding now should have been held earlier

If I were in shoes, I would've started preparing since the outbreak was reported in March!

Beync: you can say that again. That chukwu of a minister messed up big time. If he had put all these precautionary motives in place, nigeria wouldn't have been hit with d virus no matter how hard patrick suya tried to sneak his way into nigeria to spread d virus. It means people were flying in from liberia to nigeria all these while without being screened at the terminal. Who know how many ebola patient who must have flew in before patrick? And what if patrick had not fainted and taken to hospital in lagos? he could have spread d virus from lagos to calabar. How could they have traced all his primary, secondary and tertiary contacts from lagos to calabar? All I was hearing on national tv from the health minister was that there's no ebola in nig and there was no need to panic, not until patric arrived. Smh

BetaThings:

In my post I actually meant one CANNOT enter the capital Monrovia after visiting other cities
And that is in an entire country of 4million
Nigeria can easily set an inglorious Ebola record with the population in Lagos

As we speak only Delta state has a proper isolation facility
And the Minister gave approval for the corpse of Mr Sawyer ti be flown back to Liberia. But for the intervention of CDC Atlanta, that would have been done!