Ebola In Nigeria Case Study

Country Introduction Nigeria is located on the Western Coast of the African continent. It boasts a population of over 173 million people, and is the most populous country on the continent. It shares its borders with Benin, Cameroon, Chad and Niger (CIA, World Factbook).

Overview of the Public Health System Nigeria’s health sector consists of public, private, and traditional health care providers. The private actors include private for profit organizations, non-governmental organization, community based organizations and faith based organizations. (USAID, 2008). The public health sector and the health care delivery system are divided into three tiers of care- the tertiary, secondary and primary levels. The primary health care is at the

The patient is Patrick Sawyer, a Liberian-American who was exposed to Ebola in Liberia and traveled to Nigeria against medical advice. Upon his arrival in Lagos on July 20th, the most populous city in the country, Sawyer fainted in the airport and presented symptoms similar to malaria. He was rushed to a private hospital and treated for malaria, but due to his failure to respond to the malaria treatment, he was isolated and tested for the Ebola virus (MMWR, 2014). Sawyer tested positive for Ebola on July 23rd and died on July 25th. Contact tracing began immediately to find those who came into contact with Sawyer on his flight and at the airport. After the tracing of 894 contacts, 19 other cases were confirmed in Lagos and Port Harcourt, 2 of the largest cities in Nigeria (Paddock, 2014). After the first case is confirmed in Port Harcourt, the President of Nigeria declares the Ebola outbreak a public health emergency (Worland, 2014). All patients and suspected cases of Ebola were incubated for 42 days, which is twice the necessary incubation period of the disease. On October 20, 2014, after the incubation period, Nigeria is declared Ebola free. 20 total cases occurred and 8 deaths occurred during this outbreak in Nigeria (MMWR,

Many private non-governmental and government organization such as the World Health Organization, and the Center for Disease Control, were present in different parts of Nigeria and were working on eradicating other diseases such as polio and Guinea worm disease. These centers were quickly able to shift their focus from their original mission into tackling the spread of Ebola in the country, the deputy manager in charge of heading the polio campaign was brought in to head the fight against Ebola (Ogunsola, 2015). The presence of the international organizations present in Nigeria at that time significantly aided the response to the crisis. Due to previous campaigns against polio and other diseases aided by private organizations, the Nigerian government was able to draw relevant lessons into their method of combating Ebola. Their presence also increased the human, and technological capacity of the government in rapidly response to the outbreak (Juma, 2014). Without the presence of international organizations in the country, the response and its impact will surely have been