Samsung and MTN Nigeria on Tuesday donated 500 units of Samsung Galaxy A2 Core Smartphone for data capturing and case reporting of COVID-19 at the isolation centres nationwide.
Adetunji Taiwo, head of Mobile Samsung, West Africa made the donation when he led a delegation of Samsung and MTN to the ministry of health in Abuja. Taiwo said MTN is providing free SIM Cards and 2GB of data every month for 6 months for the devices.
According to a statement Signed by
Olujimi Oyetomi, Director, Information, Media & Public Relations, Taiwo added that the resources is to help Nigeria emerge stronger from the pandemic, while urging Nigerians to state safe.
The Minister of Health, Osagie Ehanire, who took delivery of the items, revealed that communication, data reporting has been a challenge in resonse to the pandemic. He said the donation by Samsung and MTN of the sets, SIM Cards and data “comes in useful.”
He therefore expressed appreciation to Samsung and MTN pledging that the items will be efficiently utilised to improve service delivery.
Ehanire told the donors that his team is “trying to reduce the rate of infection and improve service delivery so that “we are able to keep our fatality rate lower than what we have in other countries.”
He revealed that right now, Nigeria has 2.2% fatality rate while other countries are 4%, 5%.
“We hope that we can keep these fatalities lower with adequate messaging and appropriate information dissemination; and of course, the technical aspect of carrying out testing, isolation, treatment, etc; all of these data-driven and getting the entire system working smoother”, he said.
The minister thereafter gave directive to the Directors of Planning, Research and Statistics (and Permanent Secretary Designate), and the Director, Hospital Services of the Federal Ministry of Health who were present at the event to get going with fashioning out the strategy for the deployment of the donated equipment.
