UN commends Nigeria’s help to Ebola-hit countries

Ban Ki-Moon, the United Nations secretary-general, on Tuesday commended Nigerian government for its tremendous support to West African countries hit by Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) outbreak.

Ban made the remarks during a joint press conference shortly after his delegation concluded a meeting with Dlamini Zuma, chairperson of the African Union Commission (AUC), in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

The UN chief scribe had led a delegation, including Jim Yong-Kim, president of the World Bank Group (WBG), and officials of the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) as well as the African Development Bank (AfDB), to discuss the response to Ebola outbreak in parts of West Africa.

“I am encouraged by the recent support and pledges made by some African nations, most recently Nigeria, Ethiopia, Burundi and Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) for deploying medical personnel to the affected countries,” NAN quoted him as saying.

“Regional solidarity is crucial; I salute their courage and dedication. I am particularly encouraged by Nigeria for their decision to deploy medical personnel and logistics to assist these countries after containing the EVD in the country.

“We have much to learn from the experiences of Nigeria and Senegal for being able to contain the virus.”

The Nigerian government had recently deployed 300 volunteer health workers to help in tackling the EVD outbreak in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

Nigeria had also donated 3.5 million dollars as part of effort to help the three West African countries in fighting the scourge.

Ethiopia had also announced the deployment of 200 health workers with a cash donation of 500,000 dollars to the three most affected countries last week.

“We are greatly encouraged by the response of over 1,000 health workers pledged to date from ECOWAS, the East African Community, the DRC, Nigeria, Ethiopia, and others,” the AUC chairperson said.

“This is in addition to the in-kind and financial support already provided and pledged by member states to the governments of the three countries.

“We call on other member states that have not yet responded to do so in the spirit of solidarity.”

Zuma urged every African country to send health workers in the spirit of solidarity, no matter how small the number.

She said the commission was collaborating with the governments concerned and international partners to raise the resources for effective deployment of the health workers to the three countries.

Zuma said the AU would be meeting African business community on November 8 in Addis Ababa to mobilise additional support from the sector to reduce reliance on governments.

“We are working with our African strategic partner institutions, the UNECA and the AfDB; we are also looking beyond the Ebola crisis to ensure that there are plans in place to enable the countries to swiftly recover and get back on track on the road to ensure development for their people.

“We just returned from a visit to Ghana, Cote D’Ivoire, Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, along with my brothers Carlos Lopes from the UNECA and Donald Kaberuka from the AfDB.

“We already discussed this matter with Ghana, the chair of ECOWAS, and with Cote d’Ivoire.”

Zuma added that Cote d’Ivoire has already resumed flights to Guinea and will soon resume flights to Sierra Leone and Liberia.