By AbdulGafar Alabelewe, Kaduna
Kaduna State Health Commissioner, Dr. Amina Mohammed-Baloni, has said more than 130,000 people have been tested for their COVID-19 status in the state.
Mohammed-Baloni spoke yesterday while delivering a lecture at the Kaduna State University (KASU) in Kaduna.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the event was the 2021 annual Faculty Day lecture of the Faculty of Public Health and Community Medicine of the National Post-Graduate Medical College of Nigeria.
NAN also reports that the theme of the lecture was: Exploring the Impact of COVID-19 on Communities and the Mitigation Efforts.
The commissioner said 9,100 people have tested positive for the virus in the state since 2020.
She added that the state government had continued to run the COVID-19 tests for the citizens, even when the cases were low.
“Currently, we have a slight surge in the last few weeks, mostly around the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) orientation camps. This is happening across the country.
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“We have tried to get ahead of that by making sure that we have adequate testing materials,” she said.
Dr. Mohammed-Baloni said the state had five COVID-19 testing laboratories for Polymerase Chains Reaction (PCR) and 12 gene expert machines, where tests were being done.
“The NCDC has now licensed rapid test and we are also doing it in all our general hospitals.
“We are trying to test as many people as we can. Although it is expensive, government has been very supportive,” she said.
Also, a professor in the Faculty of Public Health and Community Medicine at the National Post-Graduate Medical College of Nigeria (NPMCN), Obehi Okojie, has said about 2.5 million girls across the country are at the risk of getting into early marriage by Year 2025 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Okojie, who quoted a recent survey, spoke yesterday at the college’s 2021 Faculty Day lecture at the Kaduna State University (KASU), Kaduna.
Speaking on the theme of the lecture: Exploring the Impact of COVID-19 on Communities and the Mitigation Efforts, he said: “Girls are disproportionately affected by COVID-19 and the pandemic threatens to undo decades of progress in gender equality.
“Millions of girls might not be going back (to school to learn), putting them at risk of adolescent pregnancy, child marriage and violence. About 2.5 million girls are at risk of marriage by 2025 because of the pandemic – the greatest surge in child marriage rates in 25 years.”
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