Nigeria Needs More Stringent Measures To Curb COVID-19-NMA President

President of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), Dr Fancis Faduyile has called for more stringent measures to curb the spread of Coronavirus in the country.

Faduyile while speaking during an interview on  Thursday, April 23, stated that proactive measures are necessary at this time.

According to him, the country cannot afford to get overwhelmed by Coronavirus cases with its weak health system.

Faduyile also revealed that the World Health Organisation (WHO),  has not approved any kit for COVID-19 test.

He stated that every country has a way of developing home-grown methods to resolve its challenges, adding that the NMA is working with other medical bodies to validate some of the mass screening kits for COVID-19.

He said:

“Nigeria, we must know, is not a very rich country; her patients are not very capable of getting all the necessary payment for health and the health system is weak.

“We cannot afford to get overwhelmed before we will start asking for whatever can be done for us to identify people who are positive, and for us to be able to quickly isolate them.

“The more we keep them in the community, the higher the risk of them infecting other members.”

“Nowadays, we are having patients who are coming to the hospital and are not given adequate treatment because attending physicians are not sure of the status of the patients.

“This is where the mass screening test will come in and can help in resolving some of the issues that we are facing generally.

“It is important for us to stress that it is the testing that will help in the containment of this COVID-19 infection because until we test a large number of Nigerians and those who are positive are identified and possibly isolated, it is at that time that we know that we are going in the right direction to be able to stop the spread of COVID-19.”

Faduyile averred that the total number of tests conducted so far in the country is lower than he expected, he, however, commended the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), for improving its testing capacity to discover more infections in the country.