NCDC defends N100,000 weekly support for Ebola contacts

Director-General of the NCDC, Dr Jide Idris

The Director-General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr Jide Idris, has said the ₦100,000 weekly support for primary contacts of the recent Ebola case in the country was not originally budgeted for, explaining that the assistance was introduced on compassionate grounds.

The NCDC Chief stated this during an  interview on Channels Television programme, Politics Today, on Monday night.

He said that the individuals placed in quarantine were taken away from their normal lives for public health reasons, making it necessary for authorities to provide for their basic needs.

“That was not budgeted for. Those people who were in the quarantine area were people who never planned to be there. We took them out of their comfort zones; we put them there for public health reasons, so we are responsible for their feeding, accommodation,” Idris said.

He explained that some of the quarantined individuals had complained about being separated from their families and the financial implications of remaining in the facility.

“Some of them said they had families at home they need to take care of. But one or two said they had businesses. By staying here again, you’re going to lose a lot of money again,” he said.

Idris said some of the individuals had threatened to leave the quarantine facility, a development he described as a public health concern because their infection status could not be immediately determined.

“If you allow them to leave the place, it’s a public health issue because you don’t know whether they will turn positive or who is ill,” he said.

The NCDC chief said the agency subsequently decided to provide temporary assistance to address their concerns and encourage them to remain in quarantine.

“On compassionate grounds, we said, okay, let’s see how best we can support them. It’s a temporary thing because it’s not something we’ve done,” he said.

Idris added that responsibility for providing quarantine facilities and related support ordinarily rested with state governments rather than the NCDC.

“In this kind of thing, the quarantine facility, there are the responsibilities of each state government, not any NCDC. But because this is not forthcoming, to avoid this one, just to temper this thing, we decided to step in,” he said.

PUNCH Online had reported that the NCDC had approved an emergency payment of ₦100,000 per person weekly for people placed in isolation or quarantine following the confirmation of an imported Ebola case in the Federal Capital Territory.

The report said Idris announced the intervention during a press briefing on Sunday, explaining that it followed complaints from contacts about the cost of feeding, accommodation and maintaining their families while undergoing public health monitoring.

“We are paying for their accommodation; we are paying for their feeding. Some of them are asking for a stipend to maintain their families,” he had said.

He added, “We are providing N100,000 per person per week just to maintain their comfort and feeding, because they were complaining.”

The NCDC had said the payment was an emergency measure and would be reviewed as the outbreak response progressed. At the time, 53 primary contacts linked to the confirmed case had been identified for monitoring.