Covid-19: A’Ibom Seeks FG Assistance To Fight The Pandemic

The Akwa Ibom Government has called on the Federal Government to assist the state in its fight against the novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

The State Commissioner for Health, Dr Dominic Ukpong, made the call on Thursday in Uyo while briefing newsmen on the state government’s efforts to contain the spread of the virus.

Ukpong said that the state government on its own had achieved tremendous success in the fight against COVID-19.

He said that the 45 cases of COVID-19 so far recorded in the state had been successfully handled by the state government, except for two deaths caused by comorbidity, and because they were brought in late.

The commissioner said that the Federal Government had yet to support the state in the fight against the pandemic.

“As at today, the Federal Government has yet to help Akwa Ibom in the fight against COVID-19.

“For us here, so far, we have had 45 confirmed cases of COVID-19.

“But for the fact that we had two patients brought in too late, unconscious, I would have said actually that we have lost no case,” he said.

The commissioner said that the first one died within 15 hours of arrival and the second one brought in a coma, died within four hours of arrival.

“The ones that have come to us, we took in on suspicion of COVID-19, according to the NCDC guidelines, all of them have recovered based on our treatment and have been discharged.

“We right now have some people we are following up, very healthy; we are giving them drugs and are re-testing them.

‘”If they are negative, we discharge them as usual. We have recorded tremendous success by God’s grace,” he said.

Ukpong, also the Head of COVID-19 Incident Management Committee in the state, expressed displeasure that in the absence of testing laboratory for COVID-19, government have to wait for about four days to get results for the test samples sent outside.

He added that the state government had to source for test sample kits and other reagents by itself when the available ones were exhausted, without any assistance.

The commissioner said that a number of people, individuals and corporate organisations have supported the state with cash and materials in the fight against the pandemic.

He said that the state government was still soliciting for support from individuals, groups and other corporate organisations to contain the spread of Coronavirus in the state.

Ukpong urged the people to continue to observe the NCDC protocols of washing of hands with running water regularly, using hand sanitisers, wearing face masks and maintaining social distancing to stay safe.