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The Role of the Polio Program Infrastructure in Response to Ebola Virus Disease Outbreak in Nigeria 2014

Monday, 7th of March 2016

 

Nigeria´s success in limiting its Ebola outbreak to under 20 cases in Lagos and Port Harcourt is a tribute to the government and partners. It is an interesting case of constraint of patient freedom. The Liberian patient who was confined to hospital, where he died, wished to attend a healing service in town. He was physically constrained from doing so. Had events turned out otherwise, Nigerian might have seen a nationwide epidemic in a country of 160 million people.

The Role of the Polio Program Infrastructure in Response to Ebola Virus Disease Outbreak in Nigeria 2014

1. 1.        Rui Gama Vaz1, 
2. 2.        Pascal Mkanda2, 
3. 3.        Richard Banda1, 
4. 4.        William Komkech1,
5. 5.        Olubowale O. Ekundare-Famiyesin1, 
6. 6.        Rosemary Onyibe1, 
7. 7.        Sunday Abidoye1,
8. 8.        Peter Nsubuga3, 
9. 9.        Sylvester Maleghemi3, 
10. 10.     Bolatito Hannah-Murele1 and 
11. 11.     Sisay G. Tegegne1

+Author Affiliations

1.        ¹World Health Organization, Country Representative Office, Abuja, Nigeria

2.        ²World Health Organization, Regional Office for Africa, Brazzaville, Congo

3.        ³Global Public Health Solutions, Atlanta, Georgia

1. Correspondence: R. Banda, World Health Organization, Nigeria Country Office, Abuja, Nigeria (bandari@who.int).

 

Abstract below; full text is at http://jid.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2016/02/16/infdis.jiv581.full?sid=5bde244d-23b9-48c1-bb79-95f324f6fe2e

Background. The current West African outbreak of the Ebola virus disease (EVD) began in Guinea in December 2013 and rapidly spread to Liberia and Sierra Leone. On 20 July 2014, a sick individual flew into Lagos, Nigeria, from Monrovia, Liberia, setting off an outbreak in Lagos and later in Port Harcourt city. The government of Nigeria, supported by the World Health Organization and other partners, mounted a response to the outbreak relying on the polio program experiences and infrastructure. On 20 October 2014, the country was declared free of EVD.

Methods. We examined the organization and operations of the response to the 2014 EVD outbreak in Nigeria and how experiences and support from the country´s polio program infrastructure accelerated the outbreak response.

Results. The deputy incident manager of the National Polio Emergency Operations Centre was appointed the incident manager of the Ebola Emergency Operations Centre (EEOC), the body that coordinated and directed the response to the EVD outbreak in the country. A total of 892 contacts were followed up, and blood specimens were collected from 61 persons with suspected EVD and tested in designated laboratories. Of these, 19 (31%) were positive for Ebola, and 11 (58%) of the case patients were healthcare workers. The overall case-fatality rate was 40%. EVD sensitization and training were conducted during the outbreak and for 2 months after the outbreak ended. The World Health Organization deployed its surveillance and logistics personnel from non–Ebola-infected states to support response activities in Lagos and Rivers states.

Conclusions. The support from the polio program infrastructure, particularly the coordination mechanism adopted (the EEOC), the availability of skilled personnel in the polio program, and lessons learned from managing the polio eradication program greatly contributed to the speedy containment of the 2014 EVD outbreak in Nigeria.

 

• © 2016 World Health Organization; licensee Oxford Journals.

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