The authorities of Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti (ABUAD), have directed that returning students and new ones as well as those accompanying them to campus be screened during the resumption for the 2014/2015 academic session which commences today (Friday, September 19, 2014).
This is in consonance with the institution’s determined bid to ensure that none of its students or their chaperons habours the deadly EVD.
To this end, the Founder and Chancellor of the University, Aare Afe Babalola, SAN, has set up a committee of competent and reputable medical personnel from the university’s College of Medicine and Health Sciences, headed by the Director of Medical Services, Dr. Foluso Jubilee, to ensure that everyone entering the university, including staff members, are appropriately screen.
Besides the screening at the university gate, Babalola has invested heavily in the procurement of automatic sanitizer dispensers, infra-red thermometers, protective gowns, face masks and goggles, Jik water sanitizers, special water stands which are placed in strategic locations around the university and his massive ABUAD Enterprise Farms for students, workers and visitors to get properly sanitized.
Not taking anything for granted, Babalola said the university which has held five different sessions of sensitization campaigns and other Ebola preventive measures to prevent the virus from entering ABUAD said many more of such campaigns would be held with the resumption for the new academic calendar.
His words: ”Don’t forget that our students are coming from different parts of the country, including those areas of suspected outbreak of Ebola and as their loco in parentis, we owe it a duty to ensure that they are safe and in good health any time and everytime they are with us. And that is why when they begin to arrive, the committee that we have set up will screen everyone without exemption at the gate and thereafter give them the appropriate and requisite education and sensitization on the prevention of the deadly disease”.
He added: “We are determined that we don’t loose any of our student or staff to Ebola. We are made to understand that the incubation period of Ebola is 21 days. And so after screening them at the point of resumption, they will be screened again every Saturday for four weeks to ensure that our university is completely Ebola-free. We owe that to ourselves, our students, their parents and to the society at large”.
Even though the Federal Government has consistently assured Nigerian of safety on the issue of EVD, Babalola still believes that prevention is far better than cure and so he has decided on his own to do all he could do to ensure that the university does not record a single case of Ebola.
“We have therefore decided to codify all the necessary and relevant information about Ebola in hand bills, fliers and posters and made available to all staff and students, including our visitors. The idea is if you miss the information placed on our various notice boards, you will not miss the one in fliers or hand bills. We are that serious about this matter”, he emphasized.
He advised parents to ensure that any of their children with any slight symptom of malaria are taken to the hospital for proper treatment and obtain a clean bill of health before they are allowed to resume.