• Friday, March 29, 2024
businessday logo

BusinessDay

Don’t come back home, FG tells Nigerians living abroad to stem COVID-19 spread

Untitled design – 2020-11-30T215236.082

As the world moves to find a final solution to the coronavirus pandemic, the Federal government has on Monday told Nigerians in the diaspora to possibly put on hold their plans of coming back home for holidays, as part of measures to curb the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.

Sani Aliyu, the National Coordinator of the Presidential Task Force (PTF) said at the weekly media briefing that the federal government is determined to discourage diasporans from coming home, due largely to the rising concerns of the cases in Europe, Asia, and the United States of America.

According to Sani, the federal government cannot open its skies carelessly, following the rising cases in some parts of overseas, revealing that those willing to come in follow established protocols.

“For every 1000 tests we did, we got 10 positive results. Do the mathematics and see what the result would be if we have 7000 tests. There are processes for those coming into Nigeria and must be followed. They must fill in the portal, and upload the PCR test result, and must do the mandatory 7 days test after arrival.”

Speaking on expansion of tests in states, he said, the PTF has given funds to states, adding that they had exchanged some correspondences with states on the need to upscale testings.

“FCT has tested more than 2 percent of the population, Lagos is well above 1 percent. Plateau, Bauchi, and Gombe are approaching one percent.

According to Aliyu,”We are setting up projects working with the NCDC, on doing 450 tests minimum in each local government in the country for a period of two weeks. This will push most of the states into the 1 percent mark. The 450 tests will be taken in facilities based on the current criteria from the testings criteria we have to push up the positivity rate.”

“Parts of the money we’ve given to them is setting up testings and sample collection centres. We could suggest to them more about what they could use the fund for.

“At the same time, NCDC has worked on the rapid tests kit, and we’re awaiting the validation. Also, we will provide the test kits to our hospitals, university, and prison clinics.

Aliyu explained that the 450 tests per local government area will give us 450 000 tests within a two week period and that will push us to a million test if we distribute the test kits.

He expressed optimism that in the coming weeks, till early next year, with modalities on the ground, Nigeria should witness improved testing.

He admitted that testing is still low while revealing that the PTF would keep pushing the states to upscale their testing.