Augustine Okezie, Katsina
The Katsina State Government has demanded the establishment of a testing centre in the state by the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) to ensure suspected patients of COVID-19 are diagnosed within shortest period of time.
Governor Aminu Bello Masari who made the demand on Tuesday in Katsina when he received the Director-General of NCDC, Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu and the Nigeria representative of World Health Organization (WHO) on a courtesy call at Government House, said the state government had to travel for about 12-hour distance after collecting samples of suspected patients for test in the laboratory at Abuja as the Kano centre is temporarily shut down, thus requiring outcome of tests to take days to be out.
He said ”Availability of a testing centre here will actually help in reducing the duration and the stress we are presently going through”
“samples from katsina had to reach Abuja in 24 hours otherwise it would not be tested.”
He told the visitors that considering the nature of people living in Northern Nigeria, no state would say that it does not have COVID-19 case but because of lack of testing some are presently claiming not having it . There is a need for more testings which is a major concern.”
Read Also: PHOTOS: Katsina roads deserted over lockdown
Earlier, the Director-General of NCDC, admitted that testing centres are one of the challenges facing the nation, adding that the goal of the centre is to keep the other part of the country as quiet as possible while responding to effected states where number of cases are increasing.
He explained that they were in Katsina to encourage the government to continue supporting the team in responding to any outbreak, stressing that the Emergency Preparedness and Response (EPR) , the Emergency Operation Centre (EOC) and everybody working with the teams will be kept busy to contain the emerging challenges in as much as new cases are being detected.
He hoped that the teams would be able to maintain the pace to find solutions to the situation that the state found itself.
He assured that the visitation team being led by him would be visiting isolation and treatment centres in the state and advise appropriately on how to maintain them in accordance with the standard best practices.
He said ”a lot of scientists are working on a vaccine which may not be ready for up to a year, a mechanism had to be established for controlling the spread of COVID-19.”
He announced that next week Mr President will be making some difficult decisions for the nation in terms of the lockdown in two states and FCT and across the country in different ways.
He also disclosed that President Buhari will on Wednesday have a teleconference with the Governors and that there will be some difficult decisions to be made on how to restart the economy, especially on what to start and what not to start
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