City of Lagos (courtesy of nigeriaembassyusa.org)

In mid-September, a six-member team from Baylor College of Medicine trained nearly 1,500 healthcare providers and non-medical personnel in the basic facts about Ebola and in the care of people with the disease during four days of training in two Nigerian cities – Lagos, Africa’s most populous city, and Eket, an industrial city in the south. The effort was sponsored by ExxonMobil, which has offices and petroleum operations in the African nation.

Nigeria has had a limited number of cases of the disease in the current outbreak, and the disease has been designated as contained as of early October.

The Baylor training consisted of a presentation for the non-medical public about the disease itself and how best to protect against it. A second, more sophisticated presentation was designed for healthcare providers, describing the best methods to prevent transmission, caring for patients, and protecting against acquiring the infection during care. A third presentation dealt with the appropriate personal protective equipment and how best to put it on and take it off safely.

Dr. Bobby Kapur, physician leader and associate professor of medicine – emergency medicine at Baylor, said it was interesting that Nigeria’s situation was similar to that in the United States. One person traveled from Liberia to Nigeria and then had some contact within the community.

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