President Muhammadu Buhari on Sunday received briefings from the Health Minister, Osagie Ehanire, and officials of the Nigeria Center for Disease Control (NCDC), on Nigeria’s efforts at tackling the Coronavirus pandemic.
The meeting came ahead of plans to unfold the new policy direction by the President, a day to the expiration of the 14-day-lockdown extension, which expires on Tuesday, 28 of April, 2020.
Speaking with newsmen after meeting with the President, Ehanire assured that the fight was progressing very well, adding that ” we are working with the Governors to effectively tackle the pandemic
Ehanire said they briefed the president on the activities and overall positions of the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19.
The briefing of President Buhari by the minister and the Director-General of the NCDC came barely 24 hours to the expiration of the 14-day extension to a lockdown in Lagos, Abuja and Ogun states to combat the Coronavirus pandemic.
The Nigerian leader had on April 13 announced a 14-day extension to a lockdown in Lagos, Abuja and Ogun states to combat the deadly virus.
The minister said the PTF presented to the president its advice and recommendations on the way forward as regards the ongoing fight against the spread of the deadly virus in the country.
“We also brought the overall summary apposition of the Presidential Task Force which as you know comprises of not only the health ministry but other ministries.
“We have aggregated the opinions that we have, weighing the health and the socio-economic factors and everything, to present our own opinion and recommendations to Mr President,’’ he said.
He stated that the nation was winning the fight against the pandemic as all relevant health institutions had agreed to work together to achieve the desired goal of defeating the novel Coronavirus.
“The fight is going on very well. As I said, all countries have continued with the struggle against Coronavirus, using the strategies that they have developed for their own countries.
“We have developed a strong strategy as we are working with other expert groups like the NCDC and relevant health organisations.
“So, we are also working with the states and the governors.’’
The minister, who also spoke on the reported Kano strange disease, said his ministry had been communicating with relevant agencies, including Kano State Government with a view to addressing the health problem.
Director-General of the NCDC, Chikwe Ihekweazu, who also spoke to the correspondents, advised Nigerians against wasting their meagre resources on the procurement of what he described as uncertified Rapid Diagnostic Test Kits.
“We will continue to build up our testing strategies. At the moment 14 testing centres have been activated across the country.
“We want to bring the test closer to every state. Everybody is working very hard to solve this problem.
“I can see that some people are already procuring Rapid Diagnostic Test Kits. They don’t work as far as we know.
“So, I will really recommend that we all stick to the National Strategy, build on it, support its expansion and together we will get on top of the pandemic,’’ he said.
The meeting is coming as pundits believe that government may relax the lockdown with new measures such as compulsory wearing of facemasks put in place to further curtail spread of the virus.
The PTF COVID-19 team had preparatory to submitting its reports, embarked on the assessment of the readiness of states to tackle the virus.
According to the Secretary to the government of the Federation and Chairman of the task force, Boss Mustapha, the visits “were informative and have helped to strengthened collaboration with States”.
He disclosed that PTF would continue to work assiduously towards presenting a report to Mr. President after considering all critical factors.
” Let me state that these are unusual times; we are in uncharted territories and we need to forge ahead. As we work out our models, we also draw lessons from other jurisdictions that have experiences to share. We shall however continue to pursue the strategy of aggressive testing, detection, isolation, contact tracing, treatment and care.”
Mustapha had during the daily briefing, disclosed that the PTF will be fine-tuning the directions and advisories in order to effectively guide the states and for uniformity of approach.
