Muhammad Bello in Abuja The Nigeria Medical Association (NMA) monday refuted news reports that it was against the school resumption date of September 22, saying the body was in support of the new date. The President of the NMA, Dr, Lawrence Obembe, who appeared before the House of Representatives Committee on Education, which had summoned the Education Ministry and NMA to decide on the reopening schools in the face of the Ebola outbreak in the country, backed the government’s decision to bring forward the date from October 13 to September 22. He said the action was appropriate as long as there is vigilance and measures are taken to ensure that entrants and returning students are free of the disease. Obembe said: “In order not to feed into the unhealthy fear monster in the country, schools should resume,” and that all the students returning to school must be tested and screened for symptoms of the disease. He said entry points of the country “should be put on the highest level of vigilance,” adding that: “All the state governments must be helped to resuscitate their infectious hospitals.” When asked by the committee Chairman, Aminu Sulaiman (APC, Kano), to put their position bluntly on the new resumption date, Obembe said: “NMA is in support of schools resumption on September 22, but with those measures on ground.” But the Minister of Education, Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau, had insisted that the earlier decision of October 13 was taken out of the advice by the health minister discouraging large congregations in the face of the outbreak of the disease. He said the same way the October 13 date was arrived at following the health ministry’s advice, so was the present September 22 resumption date, therefore, it was not predicated upon any pressure from any quarter. Shekarau added that it was normal for some states to extend resumption date againts the present date by one or two weeks, depending on their peculiarities. “It is a serious problem to close down primary and secondary schools for long time,” he said.
Posted on: Tue, 16 Sep 2014 06:20:10 +0000
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