Following recent speculations in the state occasioned by the novel Coronavirus pandemic ravaging the world, yesterday, l had a tete-a-tete with Dr Betta Edu, Commissioner for Health, Cross River State and Chairman, state COVID-19 Taskforce to get first-hand briefing on the situation and below are the excerpts:
The Cross River State COVID-19 Taskforce Team is set-up for prevention, protection, control and treatment (if any) of the pandemic.
Preventive measures began with the activation of Emergency Control Centres (ECC) & sensitization in the rural and urban areas, on border control & other movement restrictions, surveillance of index cases & contact tracing.
C.R.S introduced the "no mask no movement" policy to help the control of the situation which has since been adopted by other states of the federation and globally.
Free face masks have so far been manufactured and provided for free to 1.5 million Cross Riverians by the Cross River Garment Factory while working to provide Personal Protective Equipments (PPEs) for health workers as well as face shield to the public to curb the menace.
Persons with suspected cases of the virus are reffered to treatment centres set up across the state and manned by professionals working with Epidemiologists, Surveillance team, Risk Communication Management Assistants, the case management team, laboratory Technicians, and a team at the point of entry.
The State Epidemiologist is responsible for coordinating activities of health personnel spread across the state. Toll free lines are available for unhindered access to surveillance officials who are N.C.D.C (Nigerian Centre for Disease Control) trained personnel saddled with contact tracing, sample collection and testing, isolation of contacts, monitoring of persons with suspected cases, and enforcement of quarantining where necessary.
A rapid response team at the emergency management units working from the emergency operations centres responding to alerts and calls at very short notice to do follow-up for prime cases and give daily updates on the states' dashboard.
There are 20 rapid response team members at the state level and 90 (5 each) at the LGA levels, along with 30 contact tracers trained and dispatched to C.R.S by the N.C.D.C, W.H.O and the Cross River State government; 30 at state level and 10 per LGA making a total of 210 contact tracers presently.
Disease surveillance and notification Assistants are working with the various primary healthcare development Agencies, Disease Surveillance and Education Officers, LGA Chairmen, rapid response team, ward development committee officers to ensure proper response at the LGA and Ward levels.
The team at the LGAs do active-case-search at health facilities, border stations and community levels and report same on the dashboard on a daily basis.
Failure of the N.C.D.C to the state government's request to provide testing centers at the U.C.T.H and the Lawrence Henshaw Memorial Hospital despite the state having PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) machines that can run as high as 98 samples on a 6 hourly routine and Gene-Expert machines in atleast 2 of the facilities in Calabar may have devastating effect on samples to delayed travel.
The state has established a standard laboratory and is hoping on getting accreditation as soon as possible.
There are 3 isolation centers, 2 in Calabar and 1 in Ogoja with a 130-bed capacity with holding centres in all General Hospitals across the state.
There have, so far, been 8 scheduled trainings of cadet workers and volunteers to meet an initial target of 400 volunteer health workers from the private, military, paramilitary personnel trained in Calabar along with the training of Trainers in Port Harcourt by the N.C.D.C and W.H.O. The next phase saw the training of 72 volunteers vis-a-viz Doctors, Nurses and Paramedics at Ogoja.
Training of additional 70 support staff made of Technicians, Cleaners, Sanitarians were last week undertaken by the state government at the University of Calabar. 18 disease surveillance notification Agents and 24 assistant surveillance notification experts have been trained and dispatched to the various centres.
The C.R.S clinical team is made of Consultants, infectious disease Experts with both N.C.D.C and W.H.O approved treatment guidelines for COVID-19 having previously been involved in the management and treatment of Ebola virus, Laser Fever and other infectious disease conditions so far under their care.
A total of 15 cases of suspected COVID-19 have so far been registered and treated (as though they were coronavirus patients) with the same treatment administered on proven Coronavirus patient at the C.R.S COVID-19 centre at the UCTH Calabar with all 15 cases returning negative at different intervals.
To ensure legality at all fronts, the state government in partnership with the Cross River State House of Assembly passed a bill christened "Public Health Safety Law" during pandemics stipulating stiff sanctions for public health violations with backing from the judicial arm with the provision of mobile courts for trials on real-time.
Provision of sustainable support stimulus packages have been distributed through the traditional council, religious bodies and via the world bank register using the aged and most vulnerable as key indicators.
In all over 400 personnel have been trained and this is enough for deployment for a 14-day, five-week rotation schedule in-between the redeployment period for comprehensive COVID-19 management and treatment.
So far not a single infection or death as a result of the Coronavirus is recorded in Cross River State.
The CRS taskforce team on COVID-19 is working on all fronts on a daily basis to improving and no recommendation is taken for granted.
©Eugene Upah
Snr Special Assistant, Public Communications, C.R.S
info@eugene-ssapc.com.ng
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