As part of the measures to fight Ebola, the Rivers State College of Health Science and Technology has introduced Ebola Virus Disease into its curriculum.
The Deputy Provost, Academics, Dr Clement Nyenke, broke the news in his office while speaking on preventive measures against the deadly disease.
Nyenke said the college could not sit on the fence, watching the outbreak, without initiating sensitisation, prevention and control measures.
He said the school did not need any approval from the ministry but to inform various departments of the college and direct the lecturers on their resumption next month to start teaching Ebola as one of the courses.
“We are on break now; as soon as we return, all the lecturers will be directed to start teaching. All we are doing now is to include Ebola as part of our curriculum in the college to enable students and the general public create more awareness about the disease.
“This is a health institution, all we have to do is to inform the departments in the college, you know we have three types of sickness that fall into this category, we have Marburg fever, lassa fever and Ebola fever all these will be included in the curriculum to be taught to students as we resume by next month.
“It will be part of the topics to be taught in our communicable deceases course. There are courses which we call communicable decease in this institution. First, to give the student the firsthand knowledge of Ebola disease, the source, prevention, control and mode of transmission and other ways of the disease.”
Explaining why the college took the step, Nyenke said the college must take its rightful place to sensitise the students and the public on the deadly disease which has become an important issue for the college.
He said: “Many people are not aware of the disease, and one of the things we are trying to do is to launch a serious awareness campaign and we cannot do that without sensitizsing and teaching our students about the disease so that they can go out well-equiped about the information relating the disease to educate the public.
“So it is the primary responsibility of this college to train health workers and these workers we have trained we also have the primary responsibility of informing the public what we intend to achieve.”
