COVID-19: FCT Minister inaugurates emergency response team

….. 3 confirmed cases stable

By Stanley Onyekwere

As part of strategic measures against the spread of the Coronavirus also known as COVID-19, the FCT Minister, Malam Muhammad Musa Bello yesterday, inaugurated an Emergency Response Team.
The Minister explained that the primary responsibility of the team is to confront the disease in all ramifications and curtail its spread.
It would be recalled that the all four cases of the Coronavirus recorded in the FCT have been confirmed by the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control (NCDC).
Bello, who was represented at the event by the Acting Secretary of the Health and Human Services Secretariat, Dr. Kawu Mohammed said the response team has seven major pillars to address specific areas while a central coordinating committee would oversee the overall affairs of the team.
The team includes: Infection Prevention and Control; Epidemiology, Survelance and Point of Entry as well as Laboratory; while others are Risk Communication and Social Mobilization; Case Management as well as Health Safety and Welfare. Each to be chaired by relevant professionals.
The Minister charged members of the response team to bring their experiences and professionalism to bear in attending to the confirmed cases and also diligently tracking all suspects until the the FCT is declared free of the pandemic.
Also speaking, Director FCT Public Health Department, Dr. Josephine Okechukwu, while providing update on the disease, disclosed that the four confimed cases were part thirty nine (39) suspected cases, that were reported and tested in the FCT.
Okechukwu explained that while three of the confirmed cases are very stable, but one is not too stable when she visited them yesterday, at the Gwagwalada Teaching Hospital, where they are receiving treatment.
She added that all of them have the history of travel; with three coming in from United Kingdom and one from Switzerland.
In a related development, appraising compliance with earlier directive of the FCTA to religious leaders and worshipers to maintain a maximum of 50 persons in a congregation at a time, the Senior Special Assistant to the FCT Minister on Media and Strategic Communications, Malam Abubakakar Sani said the Administration is satisfied with the level of compliance.
“I want to say that from what we observed today, the report we got from the field, the FCT Administration is satisfied with the level of compliance by most of the Churches today.
“Some of the churches that did not have the time to really sensitize their members we noticed large gathering”, noted.