STATE OF EMERGENCY ON EBOLA

President Goodluck Jonathan declared a national state of emergency on Friday over the Ebola outbreak in Africa’s most populous country, and approved 1.9 billion naira ($11.7 million) of emergency funds to contain it.

Nigeria has confirmed seven cases of Ebola in its commercial capital Lagos since a man fell sick on arrival from Liberia, two of whom have died. Several dozen people who came into contact with the man are under surveillance.

Jonathan’s spokesman Reuben Abati said the money would pay to “strengthen steps to contain the virus such as … additional isolation centers, case management, contact tracing, deployment of additional personnel, screening at borders, and the procurement of required items and facilities”.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday that West Africa’s Ebola epidemic constituted an international health emergency and the virus, which has killed nearly 1,000 people, could continue spreading for months.

The prospect of Ebola in Lagos, Africa’s biggest city with 21 million people, has ratcheted up alarm about its spread.

Jonathan warned against “spreading false information about Ebola which can lead to mass hysteria, panic and misdirection, including unverified suggestions about the prevention, treatment, cure and spread of the virus.”

He also urged religious leaders to avoid holding large gatherings that might spread the virus, a reference to the many “megachurches” that can draw tens of thousands of faithful from around the West Africa region to their services.

He asked schools to extend their summer holidays and “urged that the movement of corpses from one community to the other, and from overseas into the country should be stopped forthwith”.

All deaths from sickness should be reported to the authorities, he added. The state of emergency is expected to stay in place until the outbreak is contained.

EBOLA Virsu Alert... What You need to know

In order to help our Embassy Community better understand some of the key points about the Ebola virus we have consulted with our medical specialists at the U S State Department and assembled this list of bullet points worded in plain language for easy comprehension. Our medical specialists remind everyone that they should be following the guideline from the center for Disease Control and the World Health Organisation.

§  The suspected reservoirs for Ebola are fruit bats.

§  Transmission to humans is thought to originate from infected bats or primates that have become infected by bats.

§  Undercooked infected bat and primate (bush) meat transmits the virus to humans.

§  Human to human transmission is only achieved by physical contact with a person who is acutely and gravely ill from the Ebola virus or their body fluids.

§  Transmission among humans is almost exclusively among caregiver family members or health care workers tending to the very ill.

§  The virus is easily killed by contact with soap, bleach, sunlight, or drying. A washing machine will kill the virus in clothing saturated with infected body fluids.

§  A person can incubate the virus without symptoms for 2-21 days, the average being 5-8 days before becoming ill. THEY ARE NOT CONTAGIOUS until they are acutely ill.

§  Only when ill does the viral load express itself first in the blood and then in other bodily fluids (to include vomit, feces, urine, breast milk, semen and sweat).

§  If you are walking around you are not infectious to others.

§  There are documented cases from Kikwit, DRC of an Ebola outbreak in a village that had the custom of children never touching an ill adult. Children living for days in small one room huts with parents who died from Ebola did not become infected.

§  You cannot contract Ebola by handling money, buying local bread or swimming in a pool.

§  There is no medical reason to stop flights, close borders, restrict travel or close embassies, businesses or schools.

§  As always practice good hand washing techniques, but you will not contract Ebola if you do not touch a dying person.

US EMBASSY