Former Secretary of Kwara State chapter of the Association of Nigerian Herbal Practitioners (ANHP), Emmanuel Tawose, has urged the Federal Government to prevail on public health authorities to treat Ebola patients with drugs used for leprosy patients.

However, Tawose, who described himself as a trained herbal specialist with the state's Ministry of Health, canvassed a proper laboratory confirmation of his claims before the application of the drugs.

He told The Guardian on Sunday in Ilorin: "The presentations of this Ebola Virus were exactly the way leprosy came into existence in those days before the discovery of the curative drugs.

"We used to carry infected persons in a makeshift stretcher without having contact with them and would dump them in an isolated bush with a strict warning to everybody not to enter such bush for the fear of contacting leprosy."

"The picture of the spots and bleeding from the skin and reddened eye balls I saw on the television, said to be the advanced stage symptoms of the Ebola, are similar to those of leprosy patients."

Nevertheless, Tawose believes that poor hygiene, rather than bats, some species of monkeys and bush meat is likely be the primary cause.

Nevertheless, the Medical and Dental Consultant Association of Nigeria (MDCAN) has warned that commercial cyclists could be at greater risk in the spread of the Ebola virus through body contact with passengers.

It expressed worry that government's communication on prevention is faulty. MDCAN President, Dr Steven Oluwole, noted that prevention through avoidance of handshakes "ignores that the modes of transportation in Nigeria, which include crowded buses and motor bikes, encourage intimate body contacts that exceed handshakes."

It added that rigorous contact tracing were not instituted after the index case was identified in Lagos. It urged appropriate agencies of government to work on the assumption that the epidemic has spread to all regions of Nigeria, while protocols to identify cases and for self-reporting should be developed.

And apparently responding to government's call for volunteer doctors, Lagos doctors yesterday said there were no safety measures for health workers currently risking their lives to manage reported cases.