The federal government has reiterated the need for Nigerians to observe laid out safety protocols while raising concern on the exponential spread of the coronavirus pandemic. This is coming after the government said it plans to release new protocols by the weekend.
The new protocols are expected to address several issues including the reopening of schools, interstate travels, and reopening of flights, among others. Chairman of the Presidential Task Force on Coroñavirus response, PTF COVID-19, Boss Mustapha, stated this at the national briefing on COVID-19 in Abuja, on Thursday.
Mustapha announced that “by the end of this week, the PTF would be submitting a Report containing our assessment and recommendations to Mr. President. We, therefore, urge Nigerian to await the next steps”
He lamented that the PTF has continued to receive Reports about hospitals rejecting patients thus resulting in the needless death of patients suffering from other ailments and appealed to the hospitals not to reject patients but to follow the protocols for managing COVID-19 while receiving them and most importantly, to seek necessary accreditation from the Ministry of Health and NCDC to manage COVID-19 cases.
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Minister of Health, Osagie Ehanire expressed fears that of challenges of insufficient facilities for case management on the backdrop of increasing community transmission
Ehanire said “shortages may soon arise in states as community transmission has resulted in the high number of confirmed cases.
He said that considering the importance of managing cases in facilities, the Federal Ministry of Health through the NPHCDA has developed a guideline for the establishment of Community Support Centres.
“A central objective of this guideline is the establishment of Community Support Centres (CSCs) in selected clusters of Local Government Areas (LGAs) for the management of COVID-19 cases”.
“These community support centres will strengthen the capacity of the health system at the community level to respond to the outbreak and result in the reduction of the transmission of COVID-19 within communities in high burden and high-density states”.
The Minister said that the National Council on Health has approved the Health Sector COVID-19 Pandemic Response Action Plan which was developed by the Federal Ministry of Health in collaboration with departments and Agencies to present one response in the health sector delivered in a coordinated and strategic manner.
“As the number of deaths related to Covid-19 cases in Nigeria continues to rise, I am urging citizens especially those who are in doubt to take extra precaution in their daily activities”.
“We must daily be reminded of challenges COVID-19 poses to Nigeria and the world, and further reinforce our resolve to tackle the pandemic”.
“We can reduce case fatality in Nigeria if non-pharmaceutical interventions are scaled up and we become more proactive in dealing with positive cases. We can scale up testing, tracing, treatment, and Isolation, with priority on offering more protection to elderly citizens and those with co-morbidities, from the threat of infection”
“As of yesterday, we had 649 new confirmed cases bringing the total number of cases in the country to 22,020. We have so far successfully treated and discharged 7,613 persons while 542 deaths have been recorded”.
Sani Aliyu, the National Coordinator of the Presidential Task Force who gave the information on Thursday at the daily press conference in Abuja said it is still safer to stay indoors if there is no cogent reason to go out.
“Our numbers are already increasing and we don’t want to reach the disastrous stage and if we don’t want to reach that stage, we have to take those measures to protect ourselves and our loved ones,” Aliyu said.
According to him, some people still believe it is a case that affects a reasonable number of other countries but not Nigeria. We’re all humans and there is nothing special about us that gives us resistance against COVID-19.”
Sani said many countries are fighting this pandemic globally and over 9 million people have tested positive for the disease, at least 22 000 of them are in Nigeria.
