Back to school?

Ordinarily, we should be preparing our children for the new school year, but as it is, we have to wait another six weeks until they can return to school. The Federal Government has mandated that all primary and secondary schools resume on October 13, 2014 as one of the measures to tackle the Ebola Virus Disease in Nigeria. For parents, like me, with energetic toddlers, that’s not very good news, but we accept the order with understanding. This outbreak, which took off from Guinea and spread to Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and now Senegal, has been termed the deadliest in the history of EVD. We all want to protect ourselves and our loved ones and it seems that is the motive behind the government’s postponement of the resumption of all primary and secondary schools in Nigeria.

While some of us appreciate this government for this action, a group of people, private school proprietors, have been very vocal about their displeasure over the action. I have read words like “irrational” and “vindictive” being used to describe the action. But I think that considering what we know (or do not know) about this disease, every measure must be taken to protect the most vulnerable in our society.

What we know from at least three cases (Patrick Sawyer, Olu Ibikunle Koye, and Dr. Iyke Enemuo) is that people act irrationally when they come face to face with death. Patrick Sawyer defied the authorities in Liberia and came to Nigeria, possibly in denial of the fact that he had been exposed to and was at risk for EVD. Olu Ibikunle Koye escaped from authorities in Lagos and headed for secret consultations in Port Harcourt, and Dr. Iyke Enemuo did a greater harm by aiding Koye without informing the authorities of the case that he was dealing with. He paid for his betrayal of the public trust with his life.

Just as we were about to breathe a collective sigh of relief when the Federal Ministry of Health announced the discharge of the last set of Lagos patients connected with Patrick Sawyer, the news of the Port Harcourt situation broke. As primary and secondary contacts of Dr. Enemuo were being rounded up, his sister, Chinyere, bolted to Abia State, and a good-thinking relation ensured that she returned to the authorities in Port Harcourt.

What is clear in these cases is that both physicians and patients are hesitant to bring cases to the attention of the authorities — for the patients it is probably because of the fear of being quarantined and the stigma associated with the disease. It means that like the man responsible for the cases of EVD in Port Harcourt some other ill people may try to avoid the authorities and not seek medical attention, until they are gravely ill and at death’s door.

A lot of noise has been made about the absence of temperature monitors in certain public places, and while they may be useful in identifying potential EVD patients, those devices do not put my mind at rest. As a doctor friend of mine said, any savvy person knows that paracetamol can reduce a fever, so all they need to do to evade detection is to take a few tablets of paracetamol a short while before they plan to be at any public building.

But is shutting down schools the answer? I think that the answer is a strong yes for nursery and primary schoolchildren. When I think of all the times when I pick up my son from school and see half the students in his class have a runny nose and/or cough, I shudder to think what could happen if it were something worse. They are taught to wash their hands and do so quite often, but what happens on the playground when a child wipes off a runny nose with his forearm, and then goes on to continue playing with other children who come in contact with those germs? The teachers do not and cannot see everything. The opponents of the delayed resumption point to the fact that children have not been restricted from attending church or mosque activities, but I know a number of parents who have on their own restricted their children from even those activities. There is only so much compliance that can be expected of a child in such high risk situations, and so it is better to be safe than sorry.

The postponement of schools’ resumption is not indefinite. It is not the first time that Nigeria has taken such action, and Nigeria is not the first country in the world to take such action. In 2009, when Asia was dealing with H1N1, the closure of schools was one measure used by several countries, including Singapore, Japan, Bahrain, India and Hong Kong, to deal with the spread of the disease. Although the World Health Organisation is not a fan of such measures (shutting down schools, or closing national borders), the truth is that every government must react in accordance with the realities that it finds itself in.

To add more muscle to the government’s order, the National Human Rights Commission has said that any school that violates the order on the October 13 resumption date will be prosecuted for violating the people’s rights.

People, it is six weeks that can be made up with longer school weeks and shorter breaks during the remaining months of this academic session. A child’s life, once gone cannot be made up. Let us put things in perspective. It may seem like we are succumbing to hysteria but I’d rather we err on the side of caution.

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