Lagos to prosecute stigmatisers of EVD survivors

The Lagos state government says it will prosecute any person, group or organisation found to be stigmatising any patient whose Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) infection has been treated and successfully managed.

The state’s commissioner for health, Dr. Jide Idris, who made the disclosure, implored anyone who has experienced stigmatization to petition the attorney-general of the state with the assurance that the government would take up such cases.

He said the decision to prosecute stigmatisers was made in furtherance of efforts to continue containing the spread of the disease anywhere in the country.

Idris disclosed that the state had been notified of one or two cases of such stigmatization, particularly the eviction of contacts or treated patients from their places of accommodation and the outright termination of employment of such persons.

“Infection by Ebola Virus Disease is not a death sentence so members of the public, including employers of labour, are to desist from stigmatizing persons or laying off their workers who either have been treated and given a clean bill of health or are contacts under surveillance,” Idris said.

“The action is unfair and an infringement on their fundamental right to freedom of association and employment.

“Stigmatisation may further make contacts and suspects to go underground. This may bring about the reversal of the gains we have already made, because such contacts and suspects may not come out; and if they don’t come out, they jeopardise the life of those they come in contact with, including their families.

“We want to emphasise that the ministry of justice will take up any case of stigmatisation. Anybody – either a discharged patient or a contact being followed up – who feels any form of stigmatisation, should petition the ministry of justice and the attorney-general and we will take it up from there.”

Idris urged all contacts or suspected cases to adhere to instructions of the medical task force team, particularly the one restricting travel out of their locations, saying this will only serve to facilitate easy surveillance.

“If they say, ‘don’t move out of this environment’, it is better you remain there. Listen and follow instructions and information given to such people; take your temperature twice a day and if there is any symptom, which normally starts with fever and temperature of above 38.5 degrees Celsius, let us know and we will take appropriate action.

“If you are asked not to leave the environment where you live, please obey the instruction; because if you leave, we may not be able to trace you properly and if you become symptomatic, we may not be able to reach you in time for appropriate treatment.”

Declaring the containment of EVD a “shared responsibility by all Nigerians”, he said the state government was considering mandating all those under surveillance to endorse formal correspondence that will commit them to geographical location restrictions until they are cleared.

Idris explained that the decision was informed by the need to avoid the incident that led to the spread of the virus to Port Harcourt which, was as a result of disobedience to instructions.

He enjoined all such contact cases to report to the rapid response team should they manifest any of the symptoms, and appealed to members of the public to report cases of contacts wanting to embark on “dastardly and heinous misadventures”.

“Having gone this far in the implementation of our containment measures, all hands must be on deck to ensure that we go the whole stretch after the last case is achieved in a timely fashion”, Idris said, adding that government has also had serious meetings with mortuary attendants, giving them protocols on how to handle corpses of suspected EVD victims.

“Government has also continued the process of contact tracing as a major aspect of containment of the EVD. Out of the 366 contacts recorded since the arrival of the disease on the shores of Lagos, only 19, representing about five per cent of the number, are yet to be cleared.

“In other words, we have cleared 347 who have tested negative after 21 days and are, therefore, free of the virus. The number of deaths remains five while nine confirmed cases have been cleared and discharged”.

He paid tribute to First Consultant Hospital, Obalende, which alerted the state government on the first possible case of Ebola in the state on Tuesday July 22, 2014, saying the critical success recorded in the management of the outbreak is down to the “patriotic and professional call to duty” of the hospital’s staff.

“First Consultant Hospital, Obalende, has been successfully decontaminated in line with the World Health Organization international health regulations and has since been issued a certificate by the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control and the Ministry of Health to reopen for business”, he said, urging patrons of the facility to continue patronising it “as a flagship medical facility in the state”.