Abuja, Tuesday, 21 July, 2020: The Honourable Minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire has expressed appreciation for the contributions made by individuals and organizations in form of donations of Medicines, Personal Protective Equipment’s (PPEs), which include masks, test kits etc to the Federal Ministry of Health for the containment of COVID-19.
Dr. Ehanire expressed the appreciation on behalf of the Federal Government when a delegation of Samsung and MTN Nigeria led by Adetunji Taiwo, head of Mobile Samsung West Africa visited him to make “donations of 500 units of Samsung Galaxy A2 Core Smartphone to the Government of Nigeria for data capturing and case reporting at the Isolation Centers nationwide and for general communication with the partnering MTN providing free SIM Cards and 2GB of data every month for 6 months for these devices.” Adetunji Taiwo reading further from a message from Caden Yu, the MD of Samsung West Africa, meant to be delivered on the occassio : “We are dedicating our resources to help so that we can emerge stronger together. Let’s stay safe”
The Honourable Minister of Health said daily, he sat with his team to receive situation reports from every level – States, Local Governments, Treatment Centres to see how to review treatments of COVID-19 patients and that part of the challenges they face in doing so, is the challenge of communication, dta reporting, etc. He therefore revealed that the donation by Samsung and MTN of the sets, SIM Cards and data “comes in useful.” He therefore expressed appreciation and desired this appreciation to be sent to the headship of Samsung and MTN wherever they are that “Nigeria is very grateful” pledging that “we shall make the best use” of the items and integrating them to whatever that we have to improve service delivery.
Dr. Ehanire told his visitors and donors that his team is “trying to reduce the rate of infection and improve service delivery so that “we are able to keep our fatality rate lower than what we have in other countries.” He revealed that right now, Nigeria has 2.2% fatality rate while other countries are 4%, 5%. We hope that we can keep these fatalities lower with adequate messaging and appropriate information dissemination; and of course, the technical aspect of carrying out testing, isolation, treatment, etc; all of these data-driven and getting the entire system working smoother.”
The Honourable Minister thereafter gave directive to the Directors of Planning, Research and Statistics (and Permanent Secretary Designate), and the Director, Hospital Services of the Federal Ministry of Health who were present at the event to get going with fashioning out the strategy for the deployment of the donated equipment.
Signed:
Olujimi Oyetomi,
Director, Information, Media & Public Relations.
