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The Lagos State Commissioner for Health, Prof. Akin Abayomi, has said the state’s response to Ebola in 2014 and COVID-19 proved that preparedness must be built before a crisis hits.
Abayomi made this known in an X post on Wednesday, following his presentation at the Rotary Club of Lagos on the topic “Leading Through Crisis: Lessons from Lagos State’s COVID-19 Response.”
According to him, the 2014 Ebola outbreak exposed how vulnerable a globally connected city like Lagos could be and showed that waiting for the next outbreak before preparing was not an option.
“So, between Ebola and COVID, Lagos built a biosecurity framework quietly: strengthening surveillance, laboratories, isolation capacity, trained personnel, governance structures and the medical countermeasure systems required to make rapid clinical and logistical decisions when every hour matters,” the commissioner said.
He noted that when COVID-19 arrived, that preparation became Lagos’ “first line of defence.”
The state, he said, activated an Incident Command Structure, rapidly expanded testing through public and private laboratories, established isolation centres, strengthened genomic surveillance, tracked travellers digitally and deployed mobile laboratories.
“When our isolation centres filled up, we incorporated telemedicine to safely manage people with mild disease at home while reserving hospital capacity for those who needed it most,” Abayomi added.
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However, he said COVID-19 also taught another lesson: What was enough for yesterday’s threat may not be enough for tomorrow.
To address this, the commissioner said, Lagos is investing in continuous preparedness through the proposed Lagos State Infectious Disease Research Institute.
He said, “A city of over 30 million people, receiving the majority of Nigeria’s international air traffic and connected by land and sea, cannot afford to wait for the next pathogen to announce itself.
“We need the capacity to detect early, investigate rapidly, sequence intelligently, generate evidence and act decisively.
“The question is no longer whether another epidemic will come. It is a matter of when and whether we will be ready when it does.”
Abayomi described the engagement with the Rotary Club of Lagos as valuable, noting that it went beyond the presentation to include a robust Q&A and a candid exchange on mortality, telemedicine, surveillance, research, enforcement, preparedness and the lessons Nigeria must carry forward from COVID.
