Federal government on Monday, urged Nigerians to report those asking for money before running tests for COVID-19 Patients adding that all treatments are done free of charge.
The Minister of health, Ehanire Osagie who spoke at the Presidential Task Force briefing o Monday stressed that health facilities that are not accredited are illegal and risky.
“Covid19 treatment facilities not accredited by the responsible State or FCT accreditation committee are illegal and risky, I wish to remind everyone that government run testing for COVID-19 is free. Please report anyone who demands payment for necessary action”.
Speaking further the minister said that senior Immigration officer is on Board to Calabar to study the border challenges with Cameroon, as well as a Port Health officer to assess risks posed by sea travelers arriving CRS ports particularly from neighboring Central African countries of Congo, Gabon, Cameroon Angola.
“A strong 17 man team of the Federal Ministry of Health, led by the Executive Director of National Primary Health Development Agency, left Abuja for Calabar this morning to engage with the Cross River State government in setting up their covid19 response and aligning it with the national response”.
“With regard to petitions and reports available to me, I need to here appeal to citizens, especially those covid positive who feel no symptoms at all, not to take invitation to treatment centers as persecution, but to cooperate with health officials and understand that measures taken are protective and in the interest of all of us”.
The Minister speaking further, noted that the Federal governmnet through the NCDC has launched the EE-learning platform on infection prevention and control to deepen training for healthcare workers.
“We urge our health care workers to utilise the platform for trainings especailly for states with high infection rates, infection rates have generally reduced, PPE have been distributed to health facilities and use is being monitored to avoid watsage and unprofessional disposals of used item, all covid watse are to isinerated whether factor based isinerators or improvised isinerators”.
He further disclosed the plan of the Ministry of Health to boost overall COVID-19 sample collection, by preparing all eligible public and private hospitals nationwide to become collection sites.
“This will require working with State governments and NPHCDA to identify the facilities and the space within them, to conduct training for the personnel selected and supply both PPEs and sample collection kits, as well as the logistics to go around to recover test samples, and so better utilize available laboratory assets in the country”.
“Taking the statistic of the cases of the month of June alone, 15,532 confirmed cases from 74580 tests, 303 deaths, it means that just under have of the total fatalities recorded occurred in the month of June”.
