“Bathe with salt in water” is a wicked lie – Health Minister

Health minister Onyebuchi Chukwu has debunked claims that bathing with and drinking brine solution can cure Ebola. The claims have flooded social media from Thursday night. One read: “Important news to avoid Ebola disease. Everybody should add salt into water and bathe this morning, then drink the same solution by day.” Chukwu, who was woken […]

Health minister Onyebuchi Chukwu has debunked claims that bathing with and drinking brine solution can cure Ebola.

The claims have flooded social media from Thursday night. One read: “Important news to avoid Ebola disease. Everybody should add salt into water and bathe this morning, then drink the same solution by day.”

Chukwu, who was woken by one such message at four Friday morning, said called the claim “wicked and malicious.”

The brine solution, a mix of large salt quantitiesnin water, suggested in the claim actually may cause more damage, he said.

Information minister Labaran Maku, who heads a country wide communication strategy against Ebola, Nigerians should be wary about doing more harm than any good, if they listened to many unfounded claims flying around in the wake of an Ebola outbreak.

Both ministers flew into Lagos early Friday to assess Ebola situation, being handled by rapid response teams at the emergency operations centre, housed in the Central Public Health Laboratory in Yaba.

Virologists working on Ebola, alongside “contact tracing” experts from WHO and regional health agencies in Africa, have joined Nigerian health experts at the centre.

“Nigerians don’t know it, but you are the ones doing the job,” Chukwu and Maku told the team. “The country is appreciative. I’m proud of you.”

The team meets an hour every morning before going out into the field, but returns every evening to prepare a situation report.

“For this disease, there is no medium terms. It is now or never,” said Chukwu about the country’s response to a disease that’s killed more than 700 across West Africa.

He repeated comments he made to diplomatic corps in Abuja: “The first is t we have an emergency on our hands. It is national and it is global. The second is very nation, every individual is at risk. If we imbibe these two [messages], the actions we take, the way we collaborate with others will be more realistic.”