Ebola dominates emergency preparedness training in Osun

Simon Ateba

The Ebola Virus Disease would dominate deliberations at an Emergency Preparedness Response workshop holding in Nigeria’s western state of Osun, early indications emerged on Monday.

The three-day workshop, sponsored by the United Nations’ Children Fund, UNICEF, brings together about 87 participants from four Nigerian states, including four journalists.

Between Monday and Wednesday, delegates from Lagos, Osun, Ondo and Edo States from various fields would be deliberating in the town of Ada, Osun State, with the aim of building and developing a more effective emergency response plan for their states.

The Emergency Preparedness Response (EPR) ‎workshop would not have come at a better time with Ebola ravaging parts of West Africa, said Olusoji Adebowale Adeniyi, a monitoring and evaluation officer at UNICEF.

‎Adeniyi said participants would be sensitised on the Ebola epidemic and discuss ‎issues regarding coordination amongst various government agencies and update their states emergency preparedness response contingency plan.

‎Although terrorism, ‎ethno-Religious crises, political turmoil, flood, malnutrition, kidnapping, violence and other emergrncy situations would be discussed, Ebola was likely to top the agenda, early deliberations emerged on Monday.

Revelations that Nigeria was still caught unaware even though the EPR for Ebola was developed in the country in March, four months ‎before Patrick Sawyer landed at the Lagos airport with the deadly virus pointed to the fact that more needed to be done, Adeniyi said.