By Elijah Ugani – Calabar
The leader of a seven man delegation of the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control NCDC, to Cross River State, Dr Omobolanle Olowu has stated that the state deserves some commendation in its proactive measures to fight Covid-19.
Olowu stated this at the office of the Commissioner for Health who is also the Task Force Chairman on Covid-19, in Calabar today as part of its efforts to support state governments in the fight against the pandemic.
Olowu however raised concerns of their initial fears that her delegation would be quarantined as earlier announced by the state government.
The team lead commended the proactive initiative of the state to commence the fight against Covid-19 pandemic even when Nigeria had not recorded any incident.
Her words, “Cross River deserves some accolades for the job they have done so far. The preventive measures, the production of nose masks and other proactive measures which they deployed, we really commend them.
“We had the fear of being quarantined but all that is over now as nothing like that happened, we want to believe the measured put in place by the state has made the status (COVID-19) free.
“There was a lot of anxiety before coming to Cross River, but I am glad we were given a warm reception.
“We are surprised at the level of work that has been put in place so far, all the people we saw were all on nose masks with different teams at various points in the state”
On her part, the state Task Force Chairman and Commissioner for Health, Dr Betta Edu, maintained that “It should be noted that Cross River was the first state to start the no mask, no movement policy, we blocked all borders too, very early and we were carrying out drills twice a day and later reduced it to once a day as part of proactive measures.
“We want to make it known that we are not at loggerhead with the Federal government or NCDC, we are just protecting the interest of Cross Riverians.
“We are partnering with UCTH and all medical and para-medical associations including Nigeria Medical Association, NMA, Medical Laboratory laboratory Scientists, nurses and pharmacists in the area of training and retraining for efficiency and quality service delivery as it concerns COVID-19”
The team however still maintained the earlier position of Cross River State being Covid-19 free.
