Net disposal poses threat to healthy environment – EHOAN

Ebisike, who disclosed this in Akure, the Ondo State capital at a Continuing Education Programme for Registered Environmental Officers, said, “We have asked the health authorities what is the plan for the disposal of these bed nets, in an environmentally friendly manner.”
He said diseases seem not to be abating while illnesses like cholera, typhoid and other diarrhoeal diseases are no longer responding to treatment despite huge government resources expended in curative disease programmes
More emphasis, he said, should be on preventive health rather than curative.
He noted that Nigerians are consumers of all sorts of anti-malaria medications leading to capital flight in the unending vicious circle of malaria treatment.
Ebisike called on government to work with health  professionals under the Federal Ministry of Environment to “roll back mosquito” which entails improvement in environmental sanitation.
“Has anybody in Sokoto, Owerri, Ibadan, Bauchi or any other state in Nigeria enquired where all the millions of sewage produced in the country on daily basis is disposed?
“The health of Nigerians will not improve despite the huge resources being expended by government unless there is appreciable improvement in environmental health,” he said.
 The registrar also appealed to the federal government to employ additional licensed Environmental Health Officers (EHO) to compliment the 105 already approved to ensure that the Nigerian borders were properly manned in line with the requirements of the International Health Regulation (IHR).
Ebisike stressed that since the approval for the employment of the health officers four months ago, the exercise was yet to be concluded.
The registrar also stressed that  the need to approve the employment of more health officers for the Federal Ministry of Environment became necessary because the preventive health duties embedded in the practice of environmental sanitation falls within the purview of the profession of environmental health in the ministry.
He warned that the council will not hesitate to revoke the license of any practitioner who compromises the code of ethics of the profession.
However, he said some states are engaging the services of quacks, adding that the quacks are used in “sanitation taskforce” to harass innocent Nigerians and extort money from them.
Ondo State Governor, Dr. Olusegun Mimiko, also said at the occasion that the state has a larger number of health officers at the  local government level.
Represented by the Commissioner for Environment, Barr Sola Ebiseni, the governor encouraged the officers to extend their activities to oil producing areas where environmental issues need attention.