It is shocking to learn that, we do not have a World Health Organisation (WHO) certified port for health activities in Nigeria. Effective monitoring in our ports or borders is necessary especially in this era of deadly disease outbreaks like Ebola.
In this interview with the National Mirror, The Director of the Port Health Services of the Federal Ministry Of Health, Dr. Sani Gwarzo, explained how the nation's ports gained from the Ebola disease outbreak.
See Excerpt:
Why do we have port health officials at the nation’s ports?
Like you said, port health, they are port health staff. And, all those staff are stationed in the points of entry or points of exit. We call them POE, be they airports, seaports and ground crossing. Wherever you go, you need port health staff.
Ideally, in any port setting, the first agency that a traveler encounters when going out of a country is the port health team, who will certify that the person is fit to travel and also has the necessary documents for travelling.
Likewise, any person coming into the country, the first desk that they encounter is the port health desk. There are several agencies in the ports, but each time, they have to be given a clearance, that is for the ground crossing. For the airport, it is the same thing. If you look at any airport arrangement, you will see that the first agency to encounter is the port health team who will take the travel history, take the health status of the traveler, and then, determine the risk level of the traveler, and then advice.
How many ports of entry do we have in the country?
We have documented, where we have our staff, either directly sitting down on a permanent basis, or given a cover to that location on ad-hoc basis, about 180 such ports in the country, where port health staff are stationed. Out of these, 24 are airports, about 45 are seaport, jetties, waterways, water-fronts etc. the remaining are ground crosses.
What changes would you say Ebola virus disease has brought to our nation’s health?
The sad event of Patrick Sawyer’s arrival in Nigeria and his introduction of the epidemic of Ebola was a sad one, devastating, very serious one. But, it also came with a lot of lessons that we’ve learnt. The worst for you is to have a difficult situation and you don’t learn lessons. I must say that we’ve learnt lessons. And, I think we’ve come out of the epidemic of the crisis much stronger than we would have been if he had not even come to Nigeria. Then, I will give you several fronts to it. Locally, in Nigeria, our staff strength, our equipment, our logistics, everything that has to do with the port health services has never seen this kind of tremendous goodwill and support, funding, and even highest level of political support that we’ve seen after the Ebola epidemic. That is the residual benefit of the sad situation.
The handheld infrared thermometer is no more being used by major institutions as obtained when the country battled the Ebola virus. Isn’t government worried about this?
Initially, when you saw all those internal institutions using the handheld devices to screen people in mass gatherings or places where people congregated, it was a very good practice. We encouraged it. We even supported some of them with training and equipment. That was when we had Ebola cases. That was when we still had some contacts that were being traced. We no longer have Ebola case in Nigeria. We no longer have suspected individuals who may be carrying the Ebola virus, but not showing. So, that is what we refer to as internal threat.
Internal threat of Ebola is no more. So, it is not necessary for agencies internally to continue to do that. But, in the borders, it is very important to do that because we still have external threat of Ebola, especially, around the sub-region.
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