Ebolaphobia: Primary & Secondary Schools Closed Indefinitely By Federal Government

To prevent an outbreak of the Ebola Viral Disease (EVD), the Federal Government yesterday approved the extension of the current holiday of primary and secondary schools across the country until further notice.

The development, government stated, is part of measures to curb the spread of Ebola. Also, the National Council on Health (NCH) has banned the inter-state transportation of corpses with immediate effect.

According to reports from Newsday,the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Youth and Students Matters, Comrade Jude Imagwe, who disclosed the postponement of school resumption in Abuja yesterday did not state how long the students would be on holiday.

He said that President Goodluck Jonathan was wary of the danger of the disease to the nation’s future generation and as a result ordered that the schools remained on holiday till the country find a way out of the outbreak.

“He advised that as a President, he did not desire that our secondary and primary schools should be opened at this time because we have high population of young brothers and sisters who want to see themselves grow from primary and graduate tomorrow.

“We cannot have what it takes to have eye on each of these brothers and sisters: the future of this country in their classes,” he said.

He spoke at a one-day forum on Tertiary Institutions Students Health Insurance Programme organised by the National Universities Commission (NUC) and NHIS.

Imagwe, who charged Nigerians to be conscious of their environment as well as maintain healthy lifestyle in the face of Ebola outbreak, also cautioned against the use of untested and unscientific drugs as a prevention or cure to the virus.

While advising Nigerians to value their life and those of others around them, Imagwe also berated those suspected to have the virus and had been put under surveillance but escaped.