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| Gov. Buni |
By JOE Hemba,
Yobe State government has described as unfair the claims by the Presidential Task Force on Covid 19 that the state falls under the category of states that are not reporting enough cases of covid 19 to NCDC.
The Commissioner for Health in the State Dr. Mohammed Lawan Gana in the reaction to the accusation told our correspondent that Yobe State is doing her best in the fight against the pandemic and has been strictly following the PTF and NCDC guidelines since the outbreak of the pandemic last year.
Dr. Gana noted that Yobe deserves commendations rather than such discouraging claims due to the commitment the State government has shown since the outbreak, stressing that Yobe was one of the first states that committed her resources to establish a testing laboratory and an isolation centre even before the intervention funds from the Federal government.
“As far as I am concern, we are reporting the cases of Covid 19 that we get to the best of our ability. Yobe is the first state that committed her own resource to establish a lab and buy re-agents for the testing even before the support of the Federal Government came for covid 19.
“As we are talking right now, the state has added one more testing centre which we are waiting for NCDC’s approval because they came for the accreditation and asked us to do one or two things.
“Thirdly, we have through another intervention added two additional labs in Nguru and Damaturu. This goes how to tell you how committed the state is about the covid. If you look at our isolation centres, the state government had committed resources to them even before the support from the federal government came.
“Fourthly, Yobe is still carrying out community intervention through sensitization through traditional ruler and health awareness creation. As for the testing, the state has sample collection centres all over the 17 local government areas in the state, including in the communities. With the capacity of testing that we have in the state now, once a sample is collected, the result will be ready within 24 hours.
“It is very unfair to include Yobe in states that are not reporting or not testing for covid 19. As a state, we are doing our best and also working on improving whatever we are doing,” Dr. Gana explained.
He added that the governor, Hon. Mai Mala Buni is committed to the health and wellbeing of his people and has embarked on massive health intervention through the construction of primary healthcare clinics in all the 178 political wards in the state as well as procure modern equipment at the general hospitals across the state and the State University Teaching Hospital to tackle both the primary and tertiary healthcare needs of the people.
Dr. Gana noted that the state has collected over five thousand samples, adding that, “nobody that comes up for testing that our team does not capture such are person. We are very sincere in what we are doing, we contextualized our operation in the state and to say Yobe is not reporting is most unfair to us as a state but that will not deter our commitment to the fight against the virus”.
It will be recalled that the PTF a few days ago expressed disappointment to some states that are not reporting enough of the cases of COVID 19 in their state which Yobe is included.
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