By Ejike Ejike, Abuja
The Minister of state for health, Senator Olorunnimbe Mamora has revealed that the care and attention given to HIV, tuberculosis and other ailments have been neglected due to the impact of COVID-19 pandemic.
Speaking at the national briefing of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 on Monday, the minister, while explaining the impact of COVID-19, said though some benefits may have come from the pandemic, the negative impact is that the attention given to these dangerous diseases have reduced as everyone now focuses on getting solutions to COVID-19.
Speaking further, the minister urged all health practitioners to forward cases of COVID-19 symptoms to approved lab centres in order to avoid unnecessary deaths.
According to him, “the report that many of those who died, reported late for treatment at the approved centres because they were referred late from private facilities is alarming.
“We therefore once again seize this opportunity to urge health care practitioners to promptly send all suspected cases for testing and when positive, refer them to isolation centres for treatment. Attempting to treat suspected or confirmed cases not only exposes the health workers in such a facility to risk of infection but also denies the patient early access to effective treatment in an approved treatment centre.”
He further noted that “the plan of the federal government regarding activation of oxygen availability in the states is on course with a view to effecting immediate repairs of non-functional oxygen plants.
He also noted that “the result from the tests conducted on prospective NYSC members has incontrovertibly confirmed that no part of the country is free of COVID-19 disease. We safely and comfortably draw this conclusion because corps members are mobilized from all the states of the country for each of the orientation camps
