The leader of ministerial technical team deployed to Kano to support the state response team on COVID-19, Dr Nasiru Sani Gwarzo has expressed satisfaction with the state responses to the pandemic, saying it is on a good trajectory.
He made the commendation on Wednesday when he received the national leadership of Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) and Joint Health Workers Union (JOHESU) on a solidarity visit to the state.
He said since the arrival of his team two weeks ago, many positive developments had been achieved in the state in terms of both testing and holding capacity as well as other material support from corporate entities and individuals for combating the disease.
Dr Gwarzo said, “As I am talking to you we have a mobile lab with test capacity of about 650, for holding capacity we have several facilities at three levels; when we came they had about 274 holding capacity at the three levels, fortunately as I am talking to you today we have nine new centres opened up. Just yesterday the governor commissioned 1000 capacity centres.
“The next one is about the ambulance services we met them with about 15 and now they have the capacity of almost 60 and we told them in Kano they need nothing less than 120 both for samples retrieval, patient transfers, burial team as well as coordinating collection centres.
“From this you see that increasingly, we have a clear task to achieve the support is strong and the coordination is improving this is the message we want to send out that the input are improving, the tasks too are improving so we may expect that very soon the output will also be improving.
He said the state government had put in place adequate arrangement to protect the frontline health workers and their families.
He added that, “The minister has repeatedly confirmed to me that he has obtained approval from Mr. President for their insurance and for the allowances.
The NMA chairman, Dr Francis Faduyile said they were in the state to show solidarity to health workers in the frontline and to also show their support to the government and people of Kano in the face of the ravaging pandemic.
He urged the health workers to adhere strictly to the COVID-19 safety protocols by ensuring prompt and proper use of protective kits so as to be safe to serve the public.