COVID-19: NCDC Sets-Up 23 Emergency Operation Centres

The Director of Policy and Advocacy at Nigeria Health Watch, Ifeanyi Nsofor, on Monday disclosed that the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has established 23 Public Health Emergency Operation centres across the country

Nsofor made the disclosure during a Radio Program – The morning mojo on We FM 106.3 in Abuja.

The Health Watch in a series of Live tweets on its official handle stated that the broadcast centred on the impact of COVID19 on Nigeria’s health sector and how to mitigate the challenges.

According to him, since the outbreak of the pandemic in Nigeria, the federal government through the NCDC has set-up many establishments like the 23 emergence centres, describing it as “unprecedented”.

He explained that the 23 centres have now taken the responsibility to provide leadership for detection, prevention and response to epidemic within their domains.

Speaking on lessons learnt during the Ebola outbreak, he said that Nigeria had done great in contact tracing.

“For example, contact tracing, after the first index case of COVID19 in Nigeria, more than a thousand contacts of that individual were traced within 10 days.

“The U.S and UK are still battling with contact tracing. Because we feel they should be better prepared, people just take for granted the things we have done right in Nigeria,” Nsofor said.

Calling for a more inclusive citizenry in the affairs of the nation’s health system, Nsofor envisioned a country where the citizenry hold accountable the state and local governments for their response to the pandemic and health generally.

“Some of the challenges is with us as a people. We tend to forget that governance is not only at the federal level. We forget the states and the local councils.

“The states and the local councils are where the challenges are. In Nigeria, health is on the concurrent list which means that those other levels of government have their own responsibilities,” he stated.

Nsofor stressed that “our health-seeking behaviour has a lot to do with culture, religion and also the fact that our health system especially our primary health care system is not optimised as it ought to be.

“Out-of-pocket expenditure when people seek healthcare directly is about 77% in Nigeria, which is about $7.6 billion every year. About $2.3 billion out of that is spent in chemist and community pharmacy. This just shows that Nigerians like to self medicate,” He explained.

He enjoined Nigerians to adhere to all preventive measures by the NCDC to pre-empt the spread of the virus and avert difficulties associated with contact tracing and it’s active search.

Lamenting that COVID-19 has revealed the “embarrassing” level of dependence on the federal government, he called on other agencies to help enforce the strict adherence of NCDC preventive measures.

“There is going to be an election in Edo State, the NCDC has brought out a guideline on how to conduct elections during COVID19. What is the Edo State Govt doing about it? People will go out and vote, there will be a crowd.

“We need to bring this advocacy and accountability to states and local councils to do what they are supposed to do,” Nsofor said.

Nsofor further appreciated agencies like the Private Sector Coalition Against COVID-19, who raised over N30bn within five months and the Gate Foundation whose investment in health across Africa, “is exceptional”.

As at September 14, 2020, Nigeria recorded 79 new cases of COVID-19 – the least figure ever recorded in recent times, making a total of 56,256 confirmed cases.

According to the NCDC, a total of 1,082 died due to the virus, while 44,152 infections had been recorded.