Former President Olusegun Obasanjo on Saturday suggested a summit of presidents in West Africa towards finding lasting solution to the spread of Ebola Virus.
Obasanjo made the suggestion during “An Afternoon with Obasanjo” organised by Oluwaseyi Adegoke-Adeyemo, publisher of Inside Watch Africa magazine, at the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library, Abeokuta, Ogun State on Saturday.
Obasanjo said he had met with President John Mahama of Ghana, with the sole aim of finding a way to contain the spread of the deadly virus in the sub-region.
He explained that while Mahama wanted a of ministers of health meeting, he suggested that there was a limit the ministers could go and that a summit of the presidents in the sub-region would be better.
Obasanjo noted that the Ebola virus was not only a regional or sub-regional threat, but a global threat and called for a summit where a national policy on the disease would be formulated.
He said he had spoken with the presidents of Liberia and Sierra Leone to give them words of encouragement and support on the scourge of Ebola in their countries.
He said pharmaceutical companies should be encouraged to conduct research on the virus with a view to finding the needed vaccine to eliminate it.
He said: “Pharmaceutical companies in the country should be encouraged to carry out research on the Ebola virus and come up with vaccines to treat it.”
Obasanjo said that Patrick Sawyer’s misadventure had started to take its toll on the manpower and the economy of not only Nigeria but West Africa.
He said: “It is devilish enough that Sawyer had to spread this and indeed spread it to Nigeria in connivance with some authorities from his country.
“This is because they knew he had it before he came to Nigeria.
“The toll is not only on the number of those that are ill or dead but on the economy of communities, country, region and sub-region.
“We have to be aggressive in taking precautionary measures.
“When you see your neighbour or someone who has unique symptoms not just of ordinary cold or fever, take him to the doctor, whether it is symptomatic of Ebola or ordinary malaria.
“We should not wait till someone has got incubated in it, just like Sawyer, who knew he had it and deliberately spread it.”
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