Red Cross to deploy 300 volunteers to curtail Ebola spread

Secretary General of the society, Mr. Bello Hamman Diram has said this yesterday in a statement.
Diram said: “The Nigeria Red Cross Society, in its auxiliary role to the government, is planning to launch an emergency appeal to deploy 300 volunteers to support Federal and State Governments to curtail the spread of Ebola virus.”
The response will include provision of Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) educational materials, hygiene articles, psychosocial support and dissemination of information.
 The Nigeria Red Cross said in Lagos it has provided 18 volunteers who have been trained by the incident command centre, WHO, UNICEF and CDC on contact tracing, health promotion, case management and general information dissemination. These Volunteers have since started work.
“Currently, consultation meetings with stakeholders, partners and GSM companies are going on to explore means of creating forceful  public awareness like never before to ensure that our people know and do the right thing at any given time,” Diram explained.
The head of Health and Care of the NRCS, Dr. Uche Ogba advised Nigerians not to panic as there have been cases of survivors in the worst affected countries.
“Some people have survived in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone because they heeded to advice and reported to medical facilities. Victims have a better chance to survive if they go for treatment early,” he said adding that was “no vaccination yet”.
Dr. Ogba further advised that “there should be no hesitation in reporting to the nearest medical facility any symptom of Ebola which may initially include sudden fever, intense weakness, muscle pain and sore throat. This is then followed by vomiting, diarrhea, rash, impaired kidney and liver function, and, in some cases both internal and external bleeding.”
The Ebola virus which has killed almost 900 people in West Africa is spread between humans through contact with bodily fluids of an infected person-blood, urine, stool, semen, saliva and sweat.
It could also be contracted indirectly through contact with contaminated areas, such as soiled clothing or bed linen.”