The Director-General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention(NCDC), Dr Jide Idris, has defended the agency’s decision to provide ₦100,000 in weekly support to primary contacts of a recent Ebola case, saying the payments were introduced on compassionate grounds and were not included in the original budget.

Idris explained that people placed in quarantine had been removed from their normal routines for public health reasons, making it the authorities’ responsibility to provide for their basic needs during the monitoring period.

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He made the remarks during an interview on Channels Television’s ‘Politics Today’ on Monday night.

“That was not budgeted for. Those people who were in the quarantine area were people who never planned to be there. We took them out of their comfort zones; we put them there for public health reasons, so we are responsible for their feeding, accommodation,” Idris said.

He said some quarantined individuals had expressed concern about being separated from their families and losing income while remaining at the facility.

“Some of them said they had families at home they need to take care of. But one or two said they had businesses. By staying here again, you’re going to lose a lot of money again,” he said.

According to the NCDC chief, some contacts had threatened to leave the quarantine facility because of the financial and personal difficulties they faced.

He warned that allowing them to leave could create a public health risk because their infection status might change during the monitoring period.

“If you allow them to leave the place, it’s a public health issue because you don’t know whether they will turn positive or who is ill,” he said.

Idris said the agency subsequently introduced temporary financial assistance to address their concerns and encourage them to comply with quarantine requirements.

“On compassionate grounds, we said, okay, let’s see how best we can support them. It’s a temporary thing because it’s not something we’ve done,” he said.

He added that state governments ordinarily had responsibility for providing quarantine facilities and related support, but the NCDC intervened because the expected assistance was not forthcoming.

“In this kind of thing, the quarantine facility, there are the responsibilities of each state government, not any NCDC. But because this is not forthcoming, to avoid this one, just to temper this thing, we decided to step in,” Idris said.

The NCDC had previously announced an emergency payment of ₦100,000 per person weekly for individuals placed in isolation or quarantine following the confirmation of an imported Ebola case in the Federal Capital Territory.

The agency said the intervention followed complaints from contacts about the cost of food, accommodation and supporting family members while undergoing public health monitoring.

“We are paying for their accommodation; we are paying for their feeding. Some of them are asking for a stipend to maintain their families,” Idris had said.