Director general for the Nigeria Center for Disease Control (NCDC), Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu says Nigeria has to find other ways to move forward amidst the second wave of Covid-19.
Dr. Ihekweazu stated this during the WHO Africa online press briefing. Responding to our reporter’s questions on the issue of school resumption amidst the second wave of Covid-19. He said Nigeria can not continue to close schools.
“We can not afford to close schools. It is not just possible. We will start having acess to vaccine in the next few months. So we got to find a way to continue moving forward in certain aspects of daily lives in a controlled way, avoiding risk as much as possible” he stated.
The NCDC director general also spoke on how they have successfully reduced transmission rate within the Nysc camps.
“We successfully mitigated the impact of these camps of transmission by administering rapid diagnostic test on every single person coming into these camps”
“We are confident that we can mitigate the risk of accelerated transmission within these camps by spreading the measures we always carry out. This is what we have done before we open airports. So every track of the economy will have to find a way of mitigating transmission” Dr Ihekweazu concludes.
The regional director of World Health Organization ( W.H.O) regional officer, Dr Matshidiso Moeti said plans are on, to make sure all countries receives the vaccine at the same time. She said no country will be left out.
Meanwhile, Rivers State is to get 1766 thousand Covid-19 vaccine doses in the proposed first face of the distribution exercise that will be done by the end of this month.
With details and conditions for the distribution of one hundred thousand doses to states released by the National Primary Health Care Development Agency, at a virtual meeting with stakeholders, revealed that Frontline health workers will be the first set of beneficiaries. And the vaccines will be certified fit for usage by NAFDAC when it arrives.
If schools are to be closed and worship centers and markets are left out, then what are we fighting?