Covid-19 is increasing across the world including Nigeria; people should always adhere to the rules and guidelines against contracting the disease say, Fatimah Mustapha, risk communicator, Community Engagement Focal Person for World Health Organization (WHO).
Mustapha, who stated this at a sensitisation workshop for journalists in Ilorin the Kwara State capital on the update of COVID-19 across the 16 Local Government areas, asserted that COVID-19 has truly shown that the world is a global village.
She emphasised the need for people to get tested, noting that knowing one’s status goes a long way to assist in getting healthcare early.
“The federal government is not relenting as the first batch of vaccine would soon arrive in the country,” said Mustapha.
Also speaking, Khadijah Kamaldeen, Kwara State Epidemiologist, at the Ministry of Health disclosed that the state government had so far tested 17, 581 out of an estimated total population of 3,694,079 people living across the state for COVID-19.
She informed that the state had equipped 12 testing laboratories across the 16 LGAs on Coronavirus to cater for the teeming population.
“The testing centres are to afford people to go and test for their status, adding that some LGA has higher burden cases of the Coronavirua than others.
“The state had so far conducted sample test of about 17, 581 samples, with 2,096 confirmed cases as at 4th week of 2021,” she said.
She confirmed that 45 people had so far died of the diseases, with 385 active cases.
Kamaldeen explained that Ilorin South and Ilorin West had the highest confirmed cases while Patigi and Lafiagi had no confirmed cases.
She, however, noted that the lack of cases of the disease in these LGAs may be due to low testing rates, as these communities were hard to reach areas.
“The data also disclosed women had the highest confirmed cases at 53.6 percent while men are at 46.4 percent. The age range of people with the highest suspected cases is from 25 to 29 years of age,” she said.
The State Epidemiologist disclosed that the distribution of health care workers who tested positive for COVID-19 by cadre currently stands at 4.5 percent for doctors, 2.8 percent for nurses, 2.4 percent for microbiologists, 0.4 percent for Attendants, and 0.0 percent for Physiotherapist.
“Therefore 41 out of the 522 confirmed COVID-19 cases were healthcare workers as a week four of 2021,” she added.
Kamaldeen, therefore appealed to people to make judicious use of testing laboratories and get tested for the disease.
