UNICEF Scales Up Emergency Response Plan For Lagos, Others

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UNICEF

Simon Ateba

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The Emergency Preparedness Response Plans for Lagos, Ondo, Osun and Edo states in Nigeria have been scaled up.
The plans were updated during a three-day workshop sponsored by the United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF.

The workshop, which held in the town of Ada, Osun State, brought together at least 87 participants from the four states, including four journalists.

Between 13 and 15 October, delegates from various fields and ministries deliberated and scaled up a more effective emergency response plan for their states.

The Emergency Preparedness Response (EPR) ‎workshop would not have come at a better time with Ebola ravaging parts of West Africa, said Olusoji Adebowale Adeniyi, a monitoring and evaluation officer at UNICEF, and one of the facilitators at the event.

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‎Before updating their states’ response plans, participants were sensitised on the Ebola epidemic and discussed ‎issues regarding coordination amongst various government agencies.

Deliberations focused on terrorism, ‎ethno-religious crises, political turmoil, flood, malnutrition, kidnapping, violence and other emergrncy situations, including the Ebola Virus Disease.

Revelations that Nigeria was still caught napping even though the EPR for Ebola was developed in the country in March, four months ‎before Patrick Sawyer landed at the Lagos airport with the deadly virus, pointed to the fact that more needed to be done, Adeniyi said.‎

In Ondo state where there is no State Management Emergency Agency, SEMA, participants promised to advocate for the establishment of one.

In Lagos, although there is the existence of an emergency response plan, only few participants had seen it, they said.

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