ABUJA (Reuters) - Nigeria will
send a contingent of 600 volunteers to help Liberia, Guinea and Sierra
Leone fight the worst outbreak of Ebola on record which has killed
nearly 5,000 people in West Africa, the acting health minister said on
Thursday.
The
World Health Organization (WHO) declared Nigeria, Africa's largest
economy and top oil producer, Ebola-free on Monday after an imported
case of the disease in July infected 20 people, killing eight.
The international community has ramped up aid including
sending medics and supplies to the three hardest-hit countries, where
the epidemic has crippled poor and under-equipped health systems.
Nigerian's deployment would be the largest mission sent by a fellow
African country.
"Nigeria has 600 health workers who have been trained in the field of
Ebola containment who are ready to go to other effected African
countries to help them in containment of Ebola spread," acting health
minister Khaliru Alhassan told Reuters.
"The first contingent of 250 Nigeria experts will be deployed soon," he said, without providing a date.
He said that the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control will
also support the three countries to train their health workers.
"What we are waiting for now is that the request has to
come through (West African regional bloc) ECOWAS and has to be
coordinated by WHO," he said.
Alhassan said although Nigeria has been declared
Ebola-free, it should not let its guard down because the disease remains
a threat to the country until it was contained.
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