By Udo Akam-Alo, ABAKALIKI
The Deputy Governor of Ebonyi State, Dr. Kelechi Igwe has called on the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control(NCDC) to fortify the healthcare system of the country to help curtail possible widespread of diseases.
He made the call while receiving a 5-man NCDC Rapid Response Team in his office, as contained in the public information released by his Chief Press Secretary, Dr. Monday Uzor.
Dr. Kelechi stressed the need for the centre to use its deep understanding in disease control and operation to build more abstract strategies to assist in the fight against current outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic and to also serve as reference points should there be a future occurrence.
He further appealed to the team to make available a concise report of their activities and observations to Ebonyi state government, to enable the state improve on ways to cushion the spread of Coronavirus pandemic.
The Deputy Governor informed the team that the state government has initiated a number of measures to contain the pandemic ranging from closure of boarder lines, building and equipping of treatment centres, aggressive tests carried out mostly on returnees from other states to decentralization of holding centres.
The leader of the team Dr. Sophia Usuwa said they were in the state since Ebonyi recorded an index case to provide technical support to strengthen structures on ground and improve incidence management system.
She further explained that the team had assessed structures at the border areas, treatment centres and quarantine facilities, and expressed satisfaction over what she described as synergy between Ministries and agencies involved in control of the pandemic.
She also disclosed that the team embarked on advocacy visits to relevant stakeholders in the campaign in addition to training of Health workers at Tertiary and primary health care levels on incidence management, prevention and control. “We trained 461 Primary health care workers, 143 Secondary health care workers including mission hospital health care workers, some staff of FETHA and the state’s surveillance team ” she said
Dr. Usuwa applauded the initiative of Ebonyi State Government in decentralising the holding centres and testing of returnees to prevent community infections.
NCDC Rapid Response Team to in his office.
The team comprised of experts in risk communication, surveillance, case management, infection prevention and control.
