Ebola: NCDC hotline receives 500 calls daily

By Admin

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDC) receives nearly 500 calls daily on its toll-free hotline as Nigerians seek information and clarification about the Ebola outbreak, highlighting the growing demand for reliable public health information.

The Head of NCDC 's Community-Based Surveillance and Epidemiology unit disclosed this during a media engagement on Ebola surveillance, contact tracing and responsible reporting. No less than 53 contacts are currently under watch.

She said the hotline, 6232, operates round the clock, including weekends and public holidays, with personnel available to receive calls, respond to concerns and escalate alerts for verification.

The official said the calls covered a range of concerns, questions and enquiries about the outbreak and other developments, stressing that reports received through the hotline must be verified before action is taken.

She explained that the agency’s event-based surveillance system relies on signals from communities, media monitoring and public alerts to identify potential threats early and trigger investigations.

“We can have almost 500 calls in a day, with people raising concerns, asking questions and making enquiries about the outbreak and other things going on in the country, and then we escalate to the necessary authorities for verification and response follows through after it has been verified,” she said.

According to her, no case is a confirmed case until it is confirmed by a laboratory test, explaining that surveillance teams identify suspected cases, collect samples and send them for testing.

She stressed that laboratory confirmation remained essential in determining whether a suspected Ebola infection was genuine, warning against treating unverified reports as confirmed cases.

“A case does not become a confirmed case until a laboratory confirms. We may suspect through surveillance, we collect the sample, it gets taken to the laboratory and the laboratory makes the confirmation. So nobody has a confirmed case until the laboratory says so.”

The official also cautioned against interpreting an increase in the number of contacts as evidence that infections were spreading, saying the figures could rise as investigations identify more people who may have been exposed.

“People identified as contacts should not be labelled as infected or treated as confirmed cases without evidence,” she stressed, adding that contact tracing was a critical component of efforts to interrupt transmission.

“Contacts are monitored for 21 days after their last possible exposure, the maximum incubation period for Ebola, with regular temperature checks and assessments for symptoms.;High-risk contacts may be moved to designated facilities for closer monitoring, while others are managed according to their assessed level of exposure.”

The surveillance official further said any contact who develops symptoms must be promptly assessed and isolated where necessary. She cautioned healthcare facilities to isolate patients with symptoms consistent with Ebola without waiting for laboratory results, emphasising that early separation protects other patients and healthcare workers.