Nigerian President, Goodluck Jonathan has demanded that the discrimination against Nigerians due to the stigma of Ebola be halted. President Goodluck Jonathan He said this during a meeting with a Special Envoy of the United Nations Secretary General, David Navarro, yesterday.
The President was talking precisely about the Nigeria's Youth Team's decision to withdraw from their participation at the Youth Olympics in China due to discrimination they faced.
Jonathan said that Nigeria has effectively contained the virus and that the virus never reached epidemic level in the country. He asked UN Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon to act on the sudden rise of discrimination against Nigerians. Jonathan then went forward and praised the job done by the Federal Ministry of Health, the Lagos State Government and all Nigerians for making this nation safe from the deadly virus.
"All hands have been on deck to contain the virus here. I commend my team and the Lagos State Government," he said. "We have been able to set politics aside and work in unison to deal with a national threat. "All other Nigerians have played a part too by complying with the directives and advice we have issued to stop the virus from spreading any further.
The success we have had is a testimony to what we can achieve as people if we set aside our differences and work together." Mr. Jonathan assured Mr. Navarro that his administration will make sure that if any cases of Ebola appears, they will be able to prevent a mass spread.
He said: "We will continue to monitor the situation and we will also support other affected African countries as much as we can because we cannot be completely safe from the virus as long as it continues to ravage some countries in our sub- region and continent.
"We will continue to work with the international community to curb the outbreak in other countries." Mr. Navarro however praised Nigeria's effort and said he was sent by Mr. Ki-Moon to praise the way Nigeria tackled the problem in a swift and exemplary method.
He said: "The Secretary-General asked me to come here too, not because you have an Ebola problem, but because you have tackled it in an exemplary fashion," Mr. Navarro said. "Your personal leadership on the matter has been key. There may still be some work to be done before the virus is completely cleared out from here, but other countries can learn from your fine example."
The Ebola virus is thought to be contained in Nigeria but recent news that one death recently occurred in Rivers state have pushed the Health Ministry concentration from Lagos to Rivers state. They have quarantined 70 people and shut down the hospital and the hotel suite where the primary target stayed. Recent figures by the World Health Organisation (WHO) show that the Ebola outbreak in West Africa has taken 1,552 lives with 3,069 known cases registered so far.
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