PROTOCOL
As of today, 30th April, 2020, 1,728 people have been confirmed to have COVID-19. The 196 new cases are distributed as follows: 87 in Lagos, 24 in Kano, 18 in Gombe, 17 in Kaduna, 16 in FCT, 10 in Katsina, 8 in Sokoto, 7 in Edo, 6 in Borno and 1 each in Adamawa, Ebonyi and Yobe. Happily, 307 persons have been successfully treated and discharged home, showing that COVID-19 is curable. Sadly, 51 deaths have been recorded.
- Active community transmission and scale up of case finding are expressed in increasing numbers of confirmed persons. As stated yesterday, bed spaces and Isolation Centers at State level need to match the increase and necessitates an appeal to all citizens, especially property and hotel owners, to recognize the imminent needs and the social responsibility of working with State governments to make facilities available for temporary use in emergency situations. It is of concernf to us all that everything should not be left to government alone. We must all take collective ownership of the health and wellbeing of our citizens.
- As community transmission emerges, the Federal Ministry of Health has brought in manpower capacity from National Primary Health Care Development Agency to strengthen and integrate risk communication with the planned training of primary healthcare workers and also community mobolizers to identify new cases and drive demand for COVID-19 testing, while continuing to maintain normal outpatient service. This ensures that health services provision does not suffer at the primary health care level, but also that health workforce remains safe. NPHCDA will anchor community engagement and mobilisation for COVID-19.
- The Ministerial Task Team sent on a fact-finding mission to Kano has sent an interim report, which provided information on the needs, strengths and weaknesses of the Kano response system. While I await a full report, this will guide the FMoH in supporting Kano State COVID-19 Task force with necessary material, training and human resources. They will include assembling and dispatching a technical team from FMoH and virus Infectious disease specialists from Irrua Specialist hospital to join a technical team from Lagos Ministry of Health that is already on ground in Kano at the request of H.E. the Governor of Kano State. There will therefore be a good pool of very experienced hands-on experts to support the leading role of Kano State in the response. An emergency medical team from FHoH has left Abuja with Ambulances, five of which were kindly donated by FRSC, on their way to Kano to provide emergency response in view of movement restrictions arising from the lockdown.
- I shall, as usual, ask citizens to adhere to advisories: stay home and do not travel anywhere, because there is no call for everyone to return to their village. Wear a mask or face covering if you must go out of your house and make sure to wash it every evening. Wash your hands regularly and practice respiratory hygiene. Remember social distancing, avoid crowds and inform those around you of these advisories. I once again call on health workers to stringently follow laid down standard infection prevention and control measures at all times and not to take risks. We cannot afford to lose the service of essential manpower at this time; every client should be treated with a high index of suspicion for COVID-19, but treat every client with fairness so that persons suffering from other ailments do not suffer neglect or treatment refusal. It is not ethical to turn clients away without, at least a medical advice, neither should a person in distress be refused care in emergency situation. The advisory on case management is accessible online.
- Resources and real time information on COVID-19 can be found on the social media handles of FMoH and NCDC, the FMoH website and the NCDC COVID-19 microsite covid19.ncdc.gov.ng.
Thank you.
