Residents of Lagos and environs have
been urged to ignore a rumoured re-
emergence of the dreaded Ebola Virus
Disease, EVD, in
Lagos. The rumour, which
began trending on the social media late on
the night of Friday April 10, 2015, threw a
wide section of the populace into wild
panic even as some residents began
making preparations to leave the city.
Vanguard gathered that the purported
message entitled “Ebola Returns to Nigeria
after Killing 3 and infecting 12” , continued
to circulate on Facebook, WatsApp and
Twitter, into Saturday, the day of the
Gubernatorial and States Houses of Reps
elections held nationwide.
According to the report, one of the alleged
victims, one Mr. George Lawal, showed
major signs of the disease which caused
neighbours to raise alarm.
“He was immediately taken to an
undisclosed hospital in Lagos where he
later died. Doctors confirmed he was
struck with the Ebola flu. They are believed
to have made major contacts with at least
12 people who are on the large. Please,
share the news and report any suspected
victim to nearby authorities,” the message
stated.
But debunking the rumour, a health official
and Ebola expert Dr. Lawal Bakare
described the message as malicious and a
figment of the imagination of the
originator. Bakare, who is Founder and
spokesperson for “Ebola Alert”, the official
Ebola notification body for Nigeria, told
Vanguard that the anatomy of the message
in itself is false. In an Official @EbolaAlert
notification, Bakare remarked: “We found a
fast spreading false rumour of Ebola cases
in Nigeria. The rumour was initiated by an
irresponsible blogger who lied that there
are cases of Ebola in Nigeria just to
generate traffic to her website.
We will need your powerhouse to help us
tackle this rumour.
“In order to prevent what happened during
the Ebola outbreak where people were told
to drink salt water and some ended up
losing their lives, we are doing this to let
you know ahead of this rumor and to also
tell your friends and neighbours.
The rumour is false; there is no known
case of Ebola in Nigeria.”
In his argument, Bakare said the World
Health Organization, WHO, in partnership
with the Nigerian Centre for Disease
Control and the Lagos State Ministry of
Health, have trained hospitals across
Lagos and other parts of the country on
how to report any suspect case of Ebola.
“In fact, we had an extensive training and
no health post nor hospital will call a
blogger to report such information. “We
will be one of the first to know if there is
Ebola in Nigeria and be sure we will notify
Nigerians through official and appropriate
channels. Kindly help broadcast this as far
as possible. Thank you,” he pleaded.
He urged Nigerians to visit the EbolaAlert
social media platforms for regular updates
and inquiry on Ebola around the world and
also visit www.ebolaalert.org for daily
updates.
Nigeria was declared Ebola free on October
20, 2014. A total of 20cases were recorded
of which seven died and 11 recovered. A
total of 25,226 cases have been recorded
so far worldwide, of which 10,587 died.u
