Ebola shockwaves hit Jan Poolman Thursday, September 25, 2014 - 08:00 News NAMIBIA’S stance regarding the combatting of Ebola could jeopardise the participation of one of the strongest contenders of the Confederation of African Football Women’s Championship. “The Namibian High Commission in Lagos has been instructed not to issue any visas to Nigerians who want to visit Namibia until further notice,” Home Affairs Minister Pendukeni Iivula-Ithana told Informanté. The championship will kick off on 11 October in Windhoek and the Super Falcons from Nigeria was since 1991 to 2006 the CAF’s Women Champion and took the cup again in 2010. The Super Falcons, grouped with Namibia, Ivory Coast and Zambia, is one of the eight teams scheduled to arrive in Namibia At an emergency meeting of the African Union Executive Council on Ebola on 8 September, it was called upon members states to urgently lift travel bans. However, Iivula-Ithana pointed out that the Namibian government is guided by the World Health Organisation as well the Ministry of Health to limit the spread of Ebola and therefore no-one from any of the Ebola effected countries would be allowed in the country until further notice. “We are not becoming anti-foreigners but have to implement measures to protect those who are not affected with the Ebola virus. The donation of about N$11 million to help the Ebola-stricken countries is a testimony of Namibia’s approach to combat the disease.” It is against this background that the minister appealed to companies and institutions organising international events to first consult with the Ministries of Home Affairs and Health before final arrangements are being made. Namibia Football Association (NFA) secretary general, Barry Rukoro told Informanté this was exactly what we did with the arrangements of the CAF’s Women’s Championship. “We had a meeting at the Ministry of Home Affairs since we made a block arrangement for the teams and the issue of Ebola also came up during the discussion. We were told what to do to get all teams in Namibia and so far we have not been informed otherwise,” Rukoro said. Home Affairs permanent secretary Patrick Nandago also confirmed that visas for P-Square, a well-known Nigerian musical duo, who was supposed to perform in Windhoek over the weekend, have been rejected. “We cannot compromise the security of human life in Namibia and P-Square is not an exception. We have to do everything in our power to prevent Namibia from be effected by Ebola. We don’t have the capacity to effectively fight Ebola once we have some cases. Therefore, this concert can be postponed until a later date,” Nandago stressed. Medical experts on Tuesday advised Nigerians and their government at all levels to sustain the preventive measures put in place to combat the spread of Ebola. According to the WHO Nigeria had to some extent contained the virus, but according to Prof Oyewale Tomori, a virologist with UN Agency, as long as there are still cases of Ebola in neighbouring countries – Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia – “we are not out of the woods yet, because another Patrick Sawyer (the importer of the dreaded infectious Ebola virus into Nigeria) can still come into the country.”
Posted on: Thu, 25 Sep 2014 06:00:50 +0000