COVID-19: Reps suspend sitting for 2 weeks

COVID-19: Reps suspend sitting for 2 weeks

from admin on 03/04/2020 09:36 AM

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COVID-19: Reps suspend sitting for 2 weeks
4th March 2020
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Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja and Chinelo Obogo

The House of Representatives has mandated the management of the National Assembly to shut the parliament for two weeks to facilitate the installation of infrastructure and other preventive measures that would protect lawmakers and workers from coronavirus.

The House urged the Federal Government to release emergency funds to the Ministry of Health, as well as other health agencies and institutions to eliminate the threat of coronavirus in Nigeria. It also called for the immediate reactivation of all centres established and designated for the treatment and management of Ebola cases in the country for the management of suspected cases and victims of coronavirus.

These were part of the House resolutions following the adoption of a motion by Hon. Unyime Idem on the "Need for Emergency Response and Tackling of Deadly Coronavirus (COVID-19)" at yesterday's plenary.

The Green Chamber called on the Federal Government to ensure that at least two functional isolation centres were designated in each of the six geopolitical zones for the quarantine and management of suspected cases of coronavirus.

It also called on government to ensure the provision of adequate personal protective equipment (PPE) for healthcare workers, and more drugs and equipment in hospitals and health facilities, especially at emergency and intensive care units.

Idem, in his lead debate, said the first case of coronavirus infection was recorded in the country in Lagos, after an Italian tested positive to the virus, stressing that it was imperative for government to take steps to prevent the spread of the virus in the country.

"The socio-economic implications of the outbreak of COVID-19 in Nigeria can be very disastrous. This can be threatening to the lives of about 200 million Nigerians. Hence, events have been cancelled or rescheduled as the disease ravages the world.

"With the current situation of health facilities in Nigeria, the virus, if not properly checked or curtailed, will easily be transmitted within the larger population and may lead to a wider catastrophe," he said.

Minority Leader, Ndudi Elumelu, said there was need for the National Assembly to tackle the issue with seriousness: "I think that this is very serious and I think that this House should suspend plenary for a period of two weeks or thereabouts for the singular fact of satisfying everybody and also allow management to put measures in place so that some of us can be tested. It might sound like a joking matter, but it is a very serious and this House should take it as such. Otherwise, you don't know who you will be shaking. The man who was the driver of the Italian has not been seen. Jokes apart, I think that the management and the leadership should ensure that this matter is given the seriousness that it deserve," Elumelu said.

Awaji-Inombek Abiante said there was need for concerted effort to be made in tackling the virus, noting that it was unfortunate that, despite the anxiety created in the polity by COVID-19, there was no single thermometer to test people coming into the National Assembly.

NCDC DG quarantined

The director-general of Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Chikwe Ihekweazu, has been quarantined for 14 days over coronavirus fears after he returned from a trip to China.

Minister of Health, Osagie Ehanire, disclosed this on Tuesday when he updated the Senate on the efforts of his ministry to contain the spread of coronavirus in the country.

He told the Senate that Ihekweazu was quarantined because it was the standard practice for those who just returned from China, where the disease broke out in December.

Ehanire said his isolation was part of protocol that anybody who has been out of the country is immediately isolated: "If he is positive, he is sent straight away to the isolation centre. But anybody who is coming from any of these areas, after being screened and with zero symptoms, first we give him good advisory that, in the interest of everybody around him, keep yourself isolated in your house."

"Meanwhile quarantine means keeping somebody who is healthy on observation to see if he develops the symptoms of the disease. If he develops the symptoms, he moves from quarantine to isolation. Isolation means you have it and you are not allowed to contact anybody else because you can infect other people. Dr. Ihekweazu is in quarantine in his own house, that is international standard practice, recommended by WHO. After the mandatory period, then he is free to come out, this is the standard practice in many countries."

Meanwhile, the Chinese man who arrived in Lagos Monday on an Ethiopian Airlines with cough has tested negative for coronavirus, Lagos State Health Commissioner, Prof. Akin Abayomi, has said.

He was reportedly seen coughing on board an Ethiopian Airlines flight enroute Addis Ababa-Lagos on Monday evening and at the arrival hall of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, he was also observed to have coughed twice. He was immediately separated from other passengers and after checks by port health officials, he was scheduled to undergo other tests.

Confirming the development, the MMIA manager, Mrs. Victoria Shinaba, said, "We are still expecting the results from Lagos State.''

FG moves to prevent spread in high-risk areas

The Federal Ministry of Environment has said it would deploy environmental health officers (EHO) to high-risk areas in Nigeria to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Dr. Mohammad Abubakar, Minister of Environment, made this known while briefing newsmen on the environmental health response to COVID-19 outbreak in Nigeria on Tuesday in Abuja.

According to Abubakar, the ministry is taking this measure to support the Ministry of Health's containment strategy against the disease.

He said that large pool of environmental health volunteers would be mobilised for this purpose.

The minister stated that the EHOs would be deployed to public places, including markets, schools, motor parks and train stations.

Abubakar said, based on the foregoing, the Nigerian response needs to be comprehensive, multistakeholder and multisectoral in nature, learning from countries presently at war with the novel COVID-19.

"International best practices of instituting cordon sanitaire and social distancing in our communities where needed will be utilised to limit contact of people with those that may be infected with the viral disease.

"In the same vein, environmental decontamination and disinfection shall be undertaken in high exposure areas with a view of killing the enveloped viruses," he said.

He urged the ministry of environment at the state level to be proactive and key into the preparedness in their respective states: "I hereby charge EHO in states and local ports to engage butchers to ensure they do not handle, slaughter, dress and prepare meats originating from wild animals or sick livestock, which have died from unknown causes."

He also advised Nigerians to regularly wash their hands, and cover their mouth and nose while coughing and sneezing.

Senate seeks more standard isolation centres

Senate President Ahmad Lawan has called on the Federal Government to provide more standard isolation centres across the country to check likely spread of Coronavirus.

He made the call at a meeting with the health minister and officials of the NCDC at the National Assembly Complex, yesterday.

While raising concerns over the fact that the centre in Gwagwalada, in the Federal Capital Territory, was uncompleted, Lawan called for the establishment of standard centres in the six geopolitical zones.

"We need to do something pragmatic. The building in Gwagwalada is not completed so we have a temporary centre and the temporary centre is not a standard centre.

"God forbid, if something happens in Abuja, Nasarawa, Niger or Kogi, because they don't have isolation centres, what do we do?

"Some states provide response centres. I imagine we should have the standard set by the Federal Ministry of Health for the centre for disease control rather than states doing whatever they think they should do.

"For now, I think only Lagos has a standard and functioning centre. The one in Gwagwalada is not ready, the one in Kano is not ready, that is my understanding.

"I think we need to step up; because this is an emergency, we should do whatever it is to provide the centres, to make them functional, should there be any need.

"If there is no need, that expenditure is not in vain. We have done it in the interest of our people," he said.

The Senate would visit the Gwagwalada centre, today, to ascertain the state of affairs.

Dangote donates N200m to fight

The Aliko Dangote Foundation (ADF) yesterday pledged to support the current efforts of the Nigerian government against Coronavirus with N200 million.

The ADF's intervention is considered the largest single donation by a corporate organisation in the country to contain the spread of virus since a foreigner was tested positive last month in Lagos.

The Aliko Dangote Foundation also committed about N1 billion to the fight against the dreaded Ebola virus disease (EVD) in Africa.

The foundation directly supported the Nigerian government's Ebola containment efforts through strategic investments that built resilience and strengthened Nigeria's health system in a manner expected to endure beyond the Ebola crisis period.

Among others, the foundation, during the Ebola crisis, supported government through the followings: Provision of funding for the establishment of the National Ebola Emergency Operations Centre in Yaba, Lagos; provision of 12 units of thermal cameras across Nigeria's international airports with training for 160 staff/personnel of the Federal Ministry of Health, Port Health Services Department, on the use of the thermal cameras; provision of WHO-certified personal protective equipment against Ebola; donation of $3 million to support the African Union's intervention against Ebola in West Africa; and also complete logistics support for returnee volunteers on Ebola intervention across countries ravaged by Ebola.

President Muhammadu Buhari had then commended Mr. Aliko Dangote for what he described as "remarkable sacrifices in eradicating Ebola virus disease and polio in Nigeria."

The managing director and CEO of the Aliko Dangote Foundation, Ms. Zouera Youssoufou, who was represented by the health and nutrition programme officer, Maryam Shehu-Buhari, at a donor coordinating meeting in Abuja on Tuesday, said the donation was part of the foundation's cardinal objective.

The ADF was the only wholly-Nigerian donor that attended the meeting and made a monetary pledge.

To this extent, she said the foundation had earmarked N124 million to support facilities to help prevent, assess and respond to health events at point of entry to ensure national health security.

Youssoufou said other areas where the foundation was supporting included surveillance and epidemiology, where facilities worth N36 million would be provided by to support government's efforts.

According to her, the ADF would also donate N48 million for case management training of health workers.

At the meeting facilitated by the World Bank, the bank's country director, represented by the operations manager, Ms. Kathleen Whimp, identified four thematic areas in tackling the spread of COVID-19: Regular communication with the public, contact tracing, training of volunteers and international co-operation