Ebola: FCT minister cautions principals over admission

MINISTER of the Federal Capital Territory Administration, FCTA, Senator Bala Mohammed, yesterday, warned principals and heads of schools in the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, not to admit any child with high temperature or with symptoms of malaria.
The minister said children with symptoms of malaria seeking admission to schools in the nation’s capital must go home with their parents, be treated first and come back with confirmation that those symptoms had disappeared before such a child could be admitted.
Senator Mohammed who ordered all the schools in the Federal Capital Territory to resume today, however, warned the leadership of the Nigeria Union of Teachers, NUT, not to frustrate the resumption process by asking parents not to bring their children to school.
Speaking, weekend, during the distribution of Ebola prevention/sanitary items to principals and head teachers of 1,264 in the FCT, Secretary, Education Secretariat, Mallam  Kabiru Usman, who represented the minister, said the gesture did not extend to private schools, but stressed, however, that proprietors of private schools were expected to private these items for their students, adding that the inspection, monitoring and quality assurance department of the Education Secretariat would go round to private schools to ensure full implementation of the order of the federal government.
Making the presentation at the Government Science Secondary School, Area3, Garki, Abuja, the minister who warned principals not to keep the items in their offices or private houses, said that they were for the students. Each school was given a cartoon of hand sanitizer, liquid disinfectants and hand gloves while posters on direction of proper use of the items were also presented to school authorities. The secretary assured that the secretariat had enough of the items to last till the end of the year and that more would be procured in January, if deemed necessary.
He said that the secretariat had commenced the fumigation of schools in the FC, with arrangements to commence the supply of water by tankers to schools without running taps, adding, “it must be mentioned that the process of distribution of these materials does not end today. It is continuous and will go on till the health authorities ascertain that the Ebola danger is finally over.”