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The Honourable Minister of
Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire has disclosed that only four of the COVID-19 test
kits said to be in use in Nigeria have been evaluated by the Medical Laboratory
Science Council of Nigeria and all four failed the validation tests and
results; therefore, “the tests obtained from these kits may be wrong and
misleading”
Dr. Ehanire said, “The NCDC
certified laboratories in Nigeria use WHO recognized PCR testing methods which
give reliable result. “Though expensive,
this option is right and we have 30 laboratories deployed, with the aim of
establishing at least one laboratory in every state.”
In view of the failure of some
of the test kits in use, the Minister has urged healthcare workers to ensure
they are properly protected with the appropriate PPEs and have a high index of
suspicion when treating patients. He
also advised the general public to continue to adhere to the guidelines on
prevention and control of COVID-19.
Further, Dr. Ehanire revealed
that there are some COVID-19 medical supplies being expected from Beijing, and
to be able to haul in the expected COVID-19 supplies to Abuja, the Honourable
Minister of Healthsaid that West Africa Health Organization (WAHO) and Nigeria
are presently working together on a cost-sharing plan for a common air
transport plane.
These much and more were
disclosed by the Honourable Minister at the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19
Press Briefing on Thursday 4th June, 2020 as the outcome of a virtual meeting
of the ECOWAS COVID-19 Ministerial Coordination Committee on Health, hosted by
the West African Health Organization (WAHO) and attended by 15 ECOWAS Ministers
of Health or their representatives held on Tuesday May 2nd, 2020.
The Ministerial Coordination
Committee on Health of WAHO is one of the three Committees set up to facilitate
the work of the ECOWAS COVID-19 response champion, in the person of President
Muhamadu Buhari, who was elected on April 23, 2020, at a virtual meeting of
ECOWAS Heads of State and Governments.
Dr. Ehanire disclosed that the
Meeting compared notes, discussed matters of regional cooperation and
collaboration around the COVID-19 strategy and response, border-related
challenges on movement of people and goods when borders are reopened.
In a similar development, the
Honourable Minister disclosed that, he represented President Muhammadu Buhari
at a virtual Global Vaccine Summit that was hosted by the UK Prime Minister,
Mr. Boris Johnson, the purpose of which, was to mark 20 years since GAVI was
founded, and also to raise funds to support its activities.
Speaking further, Dr. Ehanire
updated that the nation currently has a total of 11,166 confirmed COVID-19
cases in 35 States and FCT, of which 3,329 have been treated successfully and
discharged, while 315 deaths have been recorded. According to him, “the daily
epidemic curve of confirmed cases shows a consistently rising trajectory with
corresponding increase in fatalities, but nothing comparable with what is
observed in some foreign countries. To
rest on our oars for that reason, would be a serious mistake. COVID-19 is real and we have explained that
the increase in cases is due to improving testing capacity and of activities of
other response pillars, such as surveillance, community mobilization, coordination,
contact tracing improved awareness, the demographics and other factors.”
The Honourable Minister also
updated the nation that the teams deployed to Lagos and Ogun States have
returned: They visited the State EOCs, identified State specific challenges and
exchanged ideas with health workers.
He added that “the team to Kano,
Sokoto, Jigawa Borno, Katsina, Gombe will submit their final reports Friday,
5th June, 2020. The preliminary reports,
he said show that the goals of the intervention were met.”
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