Imo Bans Celebration Of Dead, Bars Entry For People From Ebola-Infected Countries
Category: Health & Physical Fitness
 |
| Gov Rochas Okorocha with Sir Jude Ejiogu, Chief of Staff and Mr Calistus Ekenze the Head of Service during an interactive session with Imo civil servants at Imo International Conference Center, Owerri recently |
Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo State has
banned the celebration of the dead in the state to prevent the dreaded
Ebola Disease Virus, just less than 24 hours after President Goodluck
Jonathan called on Nigerians to be mindful of burial ceremonies to avoid
the spread of the virus.
Okorocha also banned the entry of citizens
and individuals from countries hit by Ebola Virus, saying anybody coming
from the affected West African Countries would no longer be allowed to
enter into the state irrespective of the person’s tribe or country of
origin.
Okorocha’s order targets people from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.
Speaking yesterday at the one-day workshop
organized for the Community Government Council (CGC) women leaders in
the 27 Local Government Areas in the state, the Imo governor said
celebration of corpses such as lying them in state, bringing them into
the church for funeral, tossing of the corpse-bearing caskets by
undertakers, unnecessary exposition of corpses, etc had now been banned
in the state to prevent the people of the state from contacting the
deadly disease.
He directed that henceforth, any corpse
brought from the morgue or mortuary should be interred immediately
without being exposed to where the people could see them because “There
is no need celebrating the corpse. He is dead and can only inflict
people with diseases such as this. Nobody knows where this disease came
from and we must be careful how we do certain things now especially
funeral ceremonies”.
Okorocha disclosed that so far, four
centres had been designated to take care of any case that might arise,
listing them to include General Hospitals Ihitte Uboma, Okigwe, Imo
State University Teaching Hospital, Orlu and Imo Specialist Hospital,
Owerri.
He however stated that Imo State under him was spiritually and physically ready to wage war against the Ebola Disease Virus.
It would be recalled that President Jonathan had during a conference organised by the Interfaith Initiative For Peace in Abuja on Monday said that about 60 per cent of the cases of the Ebola Virus Disease were transmitted during burial ceremonies.
The President had also said available
reports showed that Sawyer contracted the virus during the burial of his
sister which he attended. Rather than wait to be quarantined, Sawyer
forced his way into Nigeria and infected others.
The President said it was imperative that
people were allowed to be buried wherever they die rather than their
corpses being moved from one part of the country to the other. He added
that those who derived pleasure in celebrating deaths could wait until a
more auspicious time when the challenge posed by the Ebola virus would
have been overcome.
He expressed the belief that if the
situation was managed well, it would not take the country more than two
months to overcome it. Jonathan recalled a situation in his community
when the corpse of a cholera victim was not handled properly and the
disease ended up almost wiping out the entire community. He said rather
than burying the corpse with caution, the people were celebrating the
death.
The President said, “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, Mrs. Marget Chan, was quite instructive.
“She said that the spread of Ebola from
analysis so far, 60 per cent was during burials. You will recall that in
our announcements we pleaded that people must be mindful of burials.
“We are pleading that this is not the best
period for such ceremonies. If somebody dies now, that person should be
buried where he died. “When we get over this, people can exhume the
remains of their loved ones if they want. Government will provide the
medical examiners that will help them to exhume the remains for them to
bury the way you want.
“I am saying so because I have a personal
experience. In 1971, I was still in secondary school then when cholera
broke out in my mother’s community, and of course those of us from
Southern Nigeria celebrate death. The person who died of cholera
happened to be an elderly man. So they started celebrating him for days
and of course, the whole village was almost wiped out”.
Related Posts:
No comments