The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has allayed the fear of Nigerians on the outbreak of Marburg Virus Disease in the country has it said, COVID-19, Monkeypox and others are under surveillance control.
In a tweet on its verified handle, @ncdcgov reads: “There is currently NO outbreak of #MarburgVirusDisease in Nigeria.
“However, measures such as heightened surveillance, diagnosis & rapid response teams are in place to prevent & mitigate an outbreak of the disease in-country.”
Meanwhile, an internal memo from the Management of the University of Abuja Teaching Hospital signed by its Deputy Director of Information, Sani Suleiman to notify the staff and the entire hospital community about the outbreak of Marburg and surge in COVID-19 disease was posted on social media
It reads: The Management of the University of Abuja Teaching Hospital wishes to notify the entire hospital community of an outbreak of Marburg disease and upsurge in COVID 19 infection.
“Consequently, the attention of all Head of Departments and members of staff is hereby drawn to ensure adequate surveillance and hygiene by observing all protocols of prevention.”
“Please circularise for more information as “prevention is better than cure. More details will be sent on our various social media platforms on the OUTBREAK in due course.”
When contacted on phone by Tribune, the Deputy Director of information of the University of Abuja Teaching Hospital, Sani Suleiman said the memo was misunderstood adding that it was meant to remind the staff on the basic hygiene to prevent disease outbreaks such as Marburg, COVID-19 and others.
According to him: I’m the author of the memo to sensitise the staff and the hospital community but unfortunately, that memo was misconstrued, it’s meant to be an internal memo within the hospital community for our staff to be conscious incase there is an outbreak or in case patients are coming to the hospital for treatment”.
“They didn’t post the precautionary measures, rather they just posted the memo. So, it was misconstrued by one of the staff. In fact, the hard copy has not even gone out.”
“It was meant for the hospital community to be conscious of the disease. You know some people are still negligent of the COVID-19 and if the hospital personnel are not taking precautionary measures, it will spread”.
“We are just sensitising them to be conscious. So it’s not like there’s an outbreak. We haven’t recorded any case of Marburg. People should disregard it and we are going to follow up with a correction.” He added.
