COVID-19: ‘Absence of testing channel puts health workers, others at risk in Kogi’

The reluctance of Kogi State government to open a testing channel and follow laid down protocols to exclude COVID-19 in patient management may escalate transmission of the virus in the state, the Nigeria Medical Association (NMA) has warned.

The Kogi state chapter of NMA said the anomaly which is hampering proper patient management, could lead to the needless death of patients with other clinical conditions.

Kogi state is one of two states that are yet to confirm any positive case of COVID-19 as Nigeria’s total confirmed cases top 2,500 as of Sunday. The other is Cross River state.

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In a statement by its chairman, Dr Kabiru Zubair on Monday in Lokoja, the Kogi state NMA said the situation became more worrisome as community transmission of the virus escalates in Nigeria.

”It should be noted, that if doctors should attend to one unknown case of COVID-19 in the hospital settings, it may spread to many health care workers (HWCs) and their families,” it observed.

It noted that reports from its affiliate bodies in various hospitals have shown that it is becoming difficult to manage patients with other clinical conditions without first excluding COVID-19, especially those patients coming from high-risk states in the federation, such as Lagos, Kano, and Abuja.

”It is no longer news that over 100 HCWs have been infected by this virus and some have paid the supreme price.

”As a result of this, most hospitals are on red alert and consider all patients as a potential carrier of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

”Because of this high level of suspicions, doctors prefer to rule out COVID-19 in patients they considered as high risk before proceeding to manage them for their clinical conditions,” it stated.

It, therefore, called on the state government to open the channel for testing to mitigate this unhealthy development.

It equally urged all HCWs to be on their guard and to resist any attempt to attend to patients without observing all the necessary precautions against COVID-19.