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Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja
The National Economic Council (NEC) and the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), have agreed to further strengthen COVID-19 response across the states.
NCDC Director-General, Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu, virtually briefed State House correspondents after the virtual NEC meeting presided over by Vice Presdient, Yemi Osinbajo on Thursday.
The virtual meeting was anchored from the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
Ihekweazu said the meeting was an opportunity to brief the governors on the state of the pandemic in their various states as they had done well in health security, preventing and detecting new cases among other areas.
“We agreed on several measures to strengthen the response further; one of this was to set up fixed sample collection sites in all the states.
“So that going beyond the outbreak response, there will be fixed sample collection sites where people can go to when they think they have COVID-19; mostly likely within the hospital premises and have access to testing. This will make it a lot easier for people to walk in and request a test.’’
He said that members acknowledged the increase in staff capacity among healthcare workers on infection prevention and control.
The director-general said governors were briefed on access to personal protective equipment, reagents commodities and the maintenance of a supply chain to all the states in Nigeria.
