Nigerians have been urged to resume using face masks, hand washing, and sanitizing as part of efforts to prevent another outbreak of the COVID-19 virus.
WITHIN NIGERIA reports that the federal government has increased surveillance at the country’s international airports and the now more relaxed scientific approach.
Dr. Osagie Ehanire, Minister of Health, stated at the 17th Edition of the PMB Administration Scorecard on Tuesday that in the future, travellers will be required to fill out health forms in addition to having their temperatures checked.
According to the minister, the move is part of the government’s response to the rapid spread of COVID-19.
Ehanire said;
We need to go back to wearing of face masks to protecting those with compromised health issues and to washing our hands and sanitising, if it gets even worse than that. But we have not seen what the variants are like.
Right now we just are going to increase surveillance at the points of entry; checking temperature, asking visitors to fill health forms to know where they are coming from and if they are coming from high burdened areas. We are also going to start vaccinating. Those who have not vaccinated will vaccinate at the airports before they enter, while those fully vaccinated will come in. Those are the measures we will be working on.
He asserted that Nigeria would not arbitrarily bar Chinese visitors from entering the country due to an increase in cases thought to be caused by variants linked to the dominant Omicron strain.
The minister claimed that the pandemic’s surge is due to the global winter gripping China, Europe, and the Americas, noting that COVID appears to explode in temperate areas and then recede in the summer.
Although the health authorities discovered that the prevalent variant in China resembled the sub-variant already present in Nigeria, the minister expressed concern that the sub-variants in other places are not the type present in the country.
The minister also expressed concern about the exodus of Nigerian doctors and other health workers in search of greener pastures, claiming that the crisis is global due to the mobility of the health workforce.
It is related to the fact that in winter you lock up the house and don’t leave house and no fresh air is coming in and no ventilation. We don’t exactly know yet but it is related. There is always a surge of Covid around Winter. It is not Covid China, so let’s disabuse our minds from issue of China. It is along the temperate belt. Are we going to start banning people from China because other countries are doing it?
This is not really an exodus. The very high workforce mobility is global; doctors and nurses are moving everywhere. I have had occasions speaking with other ministers, even Ghana. They are losing doctors going elsewhere. There is a high mob, the minister added.
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