Ebola: Nigeria, Ghana beef up border surveillance as WHO sounds alarm

Nigeria and its West African neighbour, Ghana, have heightened surveillance across their borders to stake off Ebola virus following the detection of seven new cases of the deadly disease in Guinea last Sunday.

Three people have reportedly died, prompting countries to activate response plans in regions, districts and health facilities.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has equally asked six Guinea’s neighbours, including Senegal, Guinea-bissau, Mali, Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone and Liberia to be alert for possible Ebola infections, while support has been initiated to contain the outbreak.

Ivory Coast, Mali and Sierra Leone have launched plans to stop any potential spread and quite distant neighbours are also not taking any chances.

Nigeria has mounted surveillance, with the Presidential Taskforce on COVID-19 (PTF) tightening scrutiny at the nation’s points of entry especially in Guinea and the Congo DCR.

The Port Health Services have been placed on alert on land, while sea and air borders as well as major hospitals have also been put on notice for a keen index.

More focus will be beamed on patient’s travel history especially at outpatient departments for reporting of infection suspicion to focal persons and state epidemiologists.

Patrick Kuma-agboaye, director- general, Ghana Health Service has asked district public health emergency management committees, including port health units at all border posts, particularly along the Western line and landing beaches to look out for the virus using the standard case definition.

The Ebola virus which causes severe and often fatal illnesses adds to the woes of COVID- 19 pandemic outbreak currently facing the continent and could overwhelm health systems capacity further.

The disease, similar in the mode of transmission from animals to humans and from humans to humans, was last seen in 2016 after 11, 300 died as a result.

According to WHO, genomic sequencing of Ebola samples from both Congo and Guinea is being carried out to determine the source of the outbreaks and identify the strains.

Congo has confirmed that its latest cases are not linked to a new Ebola variant but represent a resurgence of its tenth outbreak, the secondlargest on record that caused more than 2,200 deaths in 2018-2020, a Reuters report said.

Meanwhile, the international community now has eyes on ensuring the current endemic does not trail the path of COVID-19.

America’s president Joe Biden on Tuesday said everything possible must be done to stop the Ebola outbreaks, noting that capacity and financing for health security worldwide must be ensured even as the battle against COVID-19 moves on.

Also, some reassurance of better containment has been high among infectious disease monitoring groups based on the availability of vaccines