By Oyibo Salihu
Lokoja
There is a dire need for adequate trained environmental health officers in the country to curtail current health hazards which could terribly compound the country’s health status, Registrar of Environmental Health Officers Registration Council of Nigeria (EHORECON), Mr Augustine Ebisike, has said.
Ebisike made the remarks in Calabar during Thematic Mandatory Continuing Education workshop for registered environmental health officers, where over 1200 EHOs from across the country, attended.
EHORECON chairman, Prof. Oladapo Afolabi, in his remarks, lauded the federal government for taking necessary actions to deal with challenges posed by Ebola Virus Disease in Nigeria.
Afolabi, who was represented by EHORECON council member, Sanitarian Kehinde Badejo, expressed the council’s gratitude to the Federal government for providing enabling environment for the containment of imported EVD in Lagos and Rivers states and in urging states to take proactive measures against the disease.
He said the profession of Environmental Health was dynamic having evolved as sanitary overseers, to sanitary inspectors and t a stage where it offered as degree course in some universities in the country.
He also called for more proactive measures to roll back mosquitoes and the spread of malaria “which prevalence is high in Nigeria even though the disease is preventable.”
Chairman of Cross River state EHORECON, Sanitarian Peter Sylvanus Bassey, called on federal, state and local governments to recruit and empower more environmental health officers to enable them contribute to the improvement of environmental sanitation.
The Commissioner for Health, Prof. Angela Oyo-Ita, who was represented by Dr Hilary Adie, said there should be more emphasis on environmental health by giving more powers to the EHOs.
