Ebola: Enugu To Provide Test Kits In Public Schools

The Enugu State Gov
ernment on Thursday promised to provide Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) test kits in public schools ahead of the September 22 resumption.
The state Commissioner for Education, Prof. Uchechukwu Okoro, announced this in Enugu during a capacity building workshop on EVD for teachers in the state.
He said that government would also provide hand washing facilities and thermometres in public schools in the state.
The commissioner said that the teachers needed to be equipped with the technical knowledge in order to be in a position to handle emergency cases.
Okoro directed the teachers to ignore the strike action as directed by the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT), warning that any teacher that failed to resume classes would risk his/her job.
“There is no strike in Enugu State and teachers that refuse to report to classes will be on their own because they will not be with us,” Okoro said.
The UNICEF Education Specialist in Enugu, Dr Agatha Nzeribe, in a presentation said that children had the right to education even during emergencies.
“Education during emergencies is a fundamental right of children and when properly implanted, they will recover.
“The children should have opportunities to develop optimally, but when we leave them they will miss out at a critical period of their lives,” she said.
Nzeribe said children with disabilities  deserved special attention  in emergency situations and called for the establishment of essential communal services around public schools to enable students benefit from such services.
Nzeribe said that UNICEF would continue to partner with the state government to ensure that school children were adequately catered for.
Some of the participants at the workshop, including Mr Pius Agu and Mrs Rose Ugwu, said the training had given them more insight in handling the disease.