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Ebola: Jonathan summons governors, health commissioners



President Goodluck Jonathan on Monday summoned all state governors and their health commissioners for a meeting on Wednesday in Abuja to fashion out ways of curbing spread of the Ebola Virus disease.
The President spoke at the second Interfaith Dialogue held in Abuja.
The programme was organised by the Interfaith Initiative for Peace.
He cautioned Nigerians against celebrating burials, stressing that 60 percents of Ebola virus is spread during such burial ceremony.
The Federal Government, he said, will continue to secure its borders and airports against the disease.
Promising to do everything possible to fight the disease, the President said that he will support state governments that do not have the financial capacity to fight the scourge.
He said: “Let me appreciate our children who have performed wonderfully well in their presentation and have also raised the issue of Ebola, calling on our religious leaders to stop the Ebola problem. They called on the Sultan of Sokoto,  Alhaji Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar III and John Cardinal Onaiyekan to stop the problem. So both the Sultan and Cardinal Onaiyekan now have challenges but we will help you.”
“As a government, we promise we will do everything possible to contain Ebola. We are doing our best. On Wednesday I am going to meet with all the governors of the states, they will come with their commissioners on health, and we must make sure that every state is prepared, where they lack, federal government will support the state to make sure that they have what it takes to contain the Ebola virus.”
“It is unfortunate that one mad man brought the Ebola to us, but we have to contain it. But this is a good forum that we will use to also plead with our religious leaders because people listen to you more than they listen to politicians.”
“So in our various preaching in the mosques and in the churches, we should communicate clearly. I have been having discussions with people outside and within the country since this incident happened. My conversation with the Director General of the World Health Organisation was quite instructive.”
“She said that the spread of Ebola from analysis so far, 60 per cent of spread is during burials. That’s you will recall that in our announcement, we pleaded that we must be mindful of burials. We are pleading that our people who believe in some kind of ceremonies and so on, this is not the best period for those ceremonies.”

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