Testing, contact tracing, isolation, best practice to address Coronavirus- Forum D-G 

Coronavirus

By Deji Abdulwahab

Abuja,  March 30, 2020 (NAN) Mr Salihu Lukman, the Director-General, Progressive Governors Forum (PGF) has identified testing, contact tracing and isolation as the best practices to contain and manage the spread of Coronavirus.

Lukman, in a statement issued on Monday in Abuja, decried low number of those who had been tested in the country.

“As we try to emphasise the need to support our governments in the fight against COVID-19, we need to remind ourselves that at the moment the recognised best practice across the world is testing, contact tracing and isolation.

“These are realities that all governments across the world are facing, which include small number of testing equipment.

“This has accounted for why, as at March 29, 2020, less than 500 (in fact less than 300) tests have been carried out in the country.

“This is partly being used by some critics to suggest that the number of confirmed cases is only 111 because of the low number of those who have been tested,” he said.

According to him, problem of testing has created challenges that weakens capacity of nations to contain the spread of COVID-19 all over the world.

Lukman said that part of what non-governmental actors should bring to the table would be issues of strategy to ensure effective applications of best practices from other parts of the world.

He also urged Nigerians to desist from playing politics with Coronavirus disease, adding that they should have trust and confidence in the governments’ initiatives geared toward addressing COVID-19 challenge.

The forum’s director-general said Nigerians should borrow a leaf from Lee Hsien Loong, the Sigaporean Prime Minister, who said that people must understand and maintain trust in governments’ measures to address COVID-19 challenge.

Lukman, who described Singapore as one of the recognised successful countries to have controlled COVID-19, said Loong’s statement proffered solution to the problem facing the country.

“The position of Mr Loong underlines our problem in Nigeria, which is that we don’t trust our government and our leaders.

“With almost daily ministerial briefing by the Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire and his team, the Sunday speech by the President should have given Nigerians the needed confidence to strengthen their belief about the commitment of government to fight and contain COVID-19.

“Instead, what we have is distrust and commitment to undermine initiatives of the government,” forum director-general said.

According to him, this will appear to be setting us up for failure in a way that will cost the lives of many citizens, which may include some of us that may unfortunately become infected by the virus.

“We deceive ourselves to imagine that some of us are free from the virus, on account of which we could be tempted to politicise the problem.

“It is an unconventional challenge such that the enemy, COVID-19, doesn’t respect politics, legality or recourse to any form of interest,” he said. (NAN)

ADA/GOK

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Edited by Olagoke Olatoye