President Muhammadu Buhari, has approved N71m to ensure the deadly Coronavirus does not spread to the country.
The Minister of Health, Osagie Ehanire, told reporters after the Coronavirus Inter-Ministerial Multisectoral Preparedness and Response meeting in Abuja on Friday that a team had been set up to develop action plan for government on the next plan.
At the meeting was the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, while the ministers of Interior, Police Affairs, FCT, Foreign Affairs, Agriculture, Transportation, Aviation and Finance were represented on the occasion.
The World Health Organisation and United States Agency for International Development, as well as government health agencies were also represented at the meeting.
Ehanire said, “We had a good and successful meeting with health commissioners from Lagos, Kano, Enugu and Rivers states as well as the FCT. We have addressed all the strengths and weaknesses in the system. We have set up a team to develop action plan for government.
"An advisory from the Federal Executive Council meeting on Wednesday directed Nigerians to halt travel plan to China while also directing all returnees to Nigeria from China to be indoors within a period of two weeks to fully monitor possible symptoms.”
When asked how the FG intended to monitor the returnees to ensure total compliance, the minister said, “We are going to monitor all people entering Nigeria without looking at individual nationalities. People enter Nigeria on their own individual merit.
“We are increasing and improving surveillance and better collaboration among those who work at our ports of entry. We are looking at the airport largely, but also the seaports and the land ports. We are going to do some training for the officials.”
He added, “The President approved additional funds for the Port Health Services on Thursday. The resources are being provided for surveillance and screening activities that will be done (at the ports of entry).
“The amount approved is N71m for Port Health Services to scale up what they are doing. Every penny that was requested was approved.”
According to Mohammed, many travellers lie about their status and make screening difficult for officials.
He said, “We need a lot of public enlightenment. This virus will not make a distinction between public and private persons. We need to let people who travel know that there is a need for absolute transparency and absolute honesty when they are filling in their forms.
“Some people don’t take the forms seriously and they do mislead authorities when they are asked to declare their status. These are things we need to escalate.
“The National Orientation Agency has to do a lot of job because it is present in each of the 774 council areas. It can do a lot of taking information to the grassroots.”
When asked the amount of money earmarked by the FG for the campaign against Coronavirus, the minister said, “One of the major advantages of the declaration of global emergency for Coronavirus by the WHO is that they understand that combating it can be really expensive and there are states that cannot afford it.
“There are many partners that can help such countries. But right now, we are in the stage of working together ministerially to make sure we address the epidemic.”
