Governor Fashola’s biggest public health achievement is on Ebola, but on the global stage, it is what has earned him plaudits. How Ebola got to Nigeria through a Liberian, Patrick Sawyer, and how a brave physician, late Dr Stella Adadevoh identified Sawyer’s illness are rapidly becoming history. It is on record that the robust, effective and all-encompassing containment efforts by the Fashola administration probably saved the whole world the spectacle of the worst epidemic it might have seen. There had been palpable fears that Ebola, which has already claimed more than 5,000 lives Liberia, Sierra Leone and other west coast countries, would assume epidemic proportions with catastrophic consequences should it spread to Lagos. Despite a doctors’ strike, Fashola’s Lagos quarantined nearly 1,000 people feared to have been infected since Patrick Sawyer came into the country. It was no mean feat, especially when the World Health Organisation announced that since Nigeria had had no new cases for six weeks, it was now officially rid of the virus. It is instructive to note that even after being declared Ebola-free, the anti-Ebola campaign is still on in Lagos.
Posted on: Sat, 03 Jan 2015 00:57:38 +0000