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We Don’t Need Chinese Doctors, Says Lagos Govt

Lagos State Government on Monday said the state does not need the help of foreign doctors, including Chinese to help in fighting the dreaded coronavirus pandemic.

Nigeria’s Federal Government is planning to solicit the help of Chinese doctors to fight Coronavirus in the country, but many people are kicking against the idea.

Lagos, currently has 120 confirmed cases of Coronavirus, with 31 discharged, two evacuated, two dead and 87 active cases.

The state, however, said what it needed right now were Molecular biologists and logisticians from anywhere, whether abroad or China.

Lagos Commissioner for Health, Prof. Akin Abayomi, at a news conference to give an update on Coronavirus situation in Lagos, said there was nothing wrong soliciting the help of China to help curb Coronavirus in Nigeria.

“It is not a Nigeria COVID-19 outbreak but a global pandemic, there is a need for all nations to collaborate, experts from China went to Europe to assist Italy and Spain, these are well-developed countries.

“We are running short of molecular biologists, we will not mind receiving assistance from any country that can give us human resource capacity. Experience molecular biologists are trained not less than 4 years.

“I am not aware that we are inviting any doctors from abroad to come and assist us, we are only interested in scientists and molecular biologists and logisticians because 70 percent of the response to COVID-19 is logistics,” he said.

Abayomi appealed to Lagos residents to stop making hoax calls to the coronavirus lines, revealing that about 31,040 calls, to report suspected and real cases on the dedicated lines to alert on coronavirus had been fake calls.

He stated that these fake calls were 80 percent of the total calls made on the line, lamenting that these fake calls were blocking the state government from attending to those who really needed help, as they were unable to reach government through the lines.

According to him, only nine percent of the total calls (3,610), were valid.

Abayomi revealed that of the 87 active cases under its care, only two patients required oxygen with none needing ventilation.

He also said if not for proactive efforts from the state government, which made it to put up a strategy that included case identification, isolation, contact tracing, and community ownership, the positive cases in Lagos would have gone up to 40,000.

According to him, This was why residents must own the process by taking necessary precautionary measures, practice social distancing, wash their hands with soap, report suspected cases, among others.

Abayomi added that if the state should experience 5,000 cases in two weeks, it would not have the capacity to handle it, which was why residents must stay at home and practice social distancing.

He disclosed that persons between the ages of 30 and 59 dominated the positive cases Lagos had, a deviation from the statistics from other climes where the elderly recorded more positive cases.

Abayomi said in the coming days, the state government hoped to shift attention to Alimosho Local Government, as its statistics showed the community was endangered because of the density and the new positive cases from the local government in the last one week.