Minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire has disclosed that the 17 man Health Team deployed to engage with the Cross River State Government in view of the misunderstanding between the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 and the State Government has met with some degree of success.
While briefing the media on Monday, 13th July, 2020, Dr. Osagie Ehanire revealed that with a successful and constructive engagement by the team with the State Government, Cross-river State is now aligned with the Federal Ministry of Health (FMoH) COVID-19 response and has started reporting on the national dashboard.
The Minister informed that a GeneXpert machine has been activated at the University of Calabar Teaching Hospital to increase testing capacity in the State along with the deployment of NCDC rapid response teams to provide technical assistance to their Public Health EOC to strengthen their incident management system. He also informed that following the intervention of the Ministerial team with the Cross-river Branch of the Nigeria Medical Association (NMA) officials, issues that led to the withdrawal of medical services by the doctors in the State have been resolved and the strike action called off.
Dr. Ehanire also disclosed the local development of RNA extraction kits, with validation saying, “I am very proud of this development which I have asked the NCDC to evaluate because it will be a further step in reducing dependence on imported commodities. I hope our researchers continue with this trend and can be assured of the support of the FMoH.”
In a similarly development, the Honourable Minister disclosed that the National Institute for Pharmaceutical Research and Development (NIPRD) has applied for financial support to continue its research on the efficacy of Artemisia annua combination in the treatment of COVID-19, in which he expressed the hopes that it will resonate with sponsors.
While updating further, the Minister stated that a total of 183, 294 COVID-19 tests have been conducted so far with 32,558 confirmed positive.
He said 13,447 cases have been successfully treated with a regrettably 740 fatalities. 28,296 tests, he said were conducted since the last PTF briefing with the high figures recorded, attributed to an increase in the pace of testing and infection incidence from reports of the activation of sample collection sites in the FCT which has increased the laboratory output as well as the number of positives until the curve flattens at a yet unknown time.
Ehanire said that to further reduce the number of fatalities recorded, those defined as “Vulnerable” will be protected with non pharmaceutical measures and prioritized for admission to observation or treatment centres even if they do not yet have symptoms, while reiterating that adherence by citizens to all health advisories, taking ownership and responsibility will help in reducing the spread of the disease.
The Minister further disclosed that the ThisDay Dome treatment centres Abuja has joined the list of testing centres and will soon be opened for treatment. Renovation of the Agura hotel, he said, will soon begin as an additional observation centre for level 1 and selected level 2 cases which will increase the capacity of the FCT.