The Minister of State for Health, Dr. Olorunnimbe Mamora has expressed concerns over the continuing spread of COVID-19 infection among health workers in the country, despite all efforts being made to curtail it.
Dr. Mamora revealed his bewilderment at the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19 Press Briefing in Abuja on Thursday, 13th August, 2020.
A statement by the Federal Ministry of Health, said the Minister however reiterated Government’s commitment to sustaining the gains so far made in reducing the ugly trend.
To this end, he disclosed that about 594 healthcare workers from various private and public facilities in Abia State have undergone training and retraining on infection prevention and control.
“We are concerned by the resurgence of infection in healthcare workers. In a bid to sustain the gains we have made in reducing the rate of infection among our health workers, we have made training and retraining of health workers on infection prevention and control our priority”, he said.
Dr. Mamora added that government is currently investigating healthcare-associated infection in a health facility in Kaduna State and that lessons learned from the investigation would be used to improve service delivery.
While urging the healthcare workers not to drop their guards, the Minister charged them to ensure appropriate usage of their Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs).
“I encourage our health workers not to drop their guards as the pandemic is still with us. Use your PPEs appropriately and judiciously. We have ensured that PPEs are available in all our health facilities”, he said.
Updating on the Nation’s COVID-19 cases, Dr. Mamora revealed that as at 13th August, 2020, Nigeria has tested 338,084 samples so far and has recorded 47,743 cases with 33,943 persons treated and discharged while 956 persons have been lost to the COVID-19 infection.
He added that more than 70% of all the tests conducted have been in 9 states including Lagos, Kano, FCT, Plateau, Oyo, Kaduna, Edo Ogun Rivers with 25% of the tests in Lagos alone.
He assured of the Federal Government’s continued collaboration with State Governments to ramp up case findings and sample collection activities saying, “Our target remains to test 1% of our population across the country.”
