The minister of health, Dr Osagie Ehanire, yesterday announced plans to vaccinate unvaccinated travellers entering Nigeria at the airports following the resurgence of COVID-19.
Speaking at the 17th Edition of the PMB Administration Scorecard in Abuja, the minister said the government’s response to the latest spike would be guided by science through creating awareness and involving the public with increasing vaccination.
He urged state governments to submit an inventory of isolation and testing centres for the management of COVID-19 in their respective states.
“We need to go back to wearing of face masks to protecting those with compromised health issues and to washing our hands and sanitising, if it gets even worse than that. But we have not seen what the variants are like.
“Right now we are just going to increase surveillance at the points of entry; checking temperature, asking visitors to fill health forms to know where they are coming from and if they are coming from high burdened areas. We are also going to start vaccinating.
“Those who have not vaccinated will vaccinate at the airports before they enter, while those fully vaccinated will come in. Those are the measures we will be working on,” Ehanire said.
On the vaccination of visitors who have not been vaccinated against COVID-19, the minister said: “The variants abroad are also here but we are monitoring. We are paying attention to what is happening elsewhere. However, in terms of the OMICRON variant circulating in Nigeria, it’s been circulating in other parts of the world and even in Nigeria, since 2021.
“Cases have gone up in the America’s and Europe, due to winter. We’re keeping an eye on OMICRON sub-variants but what we know in many of the countries we’ve looked – South Africa, Kenya, Ethiopia because Nigerians pass through these countries, frequently – there is no increase in COVID cases…If you’ve gotten your second dose, go and get the booster. You are protected if you’ve got the required number of COVID vaccinations,” he said.
The minister also insisted that Nigeria would not spontaneously ban travellers from China from entering the country over the rising cases that are suspected to be triggered by variants linked to the dominant Omicron strain.
He attributed the surge in the pandemic to the global winter gripping across China, Europe and the Americas, saying COVID appears to explode in temperate areas and also recede in the summer.
“It is related to the fact that in winter you lock up the house and don’t leave house and no fresh air is coming in and no ventilation. We don’t exactly know yet but it is related. There is always a surge of Covid around winter. It is not Covid China, so let’s disabuse our minds from the issue of China. It is along the temperate belt. Are we going to start banning people from China because other countries are doing it?”
Ehanire also said although the health authorities had discovered that the prevalent variant in China also bore semblance to the sub-variant already present in Nigeria, its concern is that the sub variants in other places are not the types present in Nigeria.
On the migration of medical doctors and skilled workers in the health sector from Nigeria, Ehanire said the development is a global issue that affects even developed countries.
“The high workforce mobility of health workers is global. Doctors are moving, nurses are moving everywhere. I have had occasions speaking with other ministers, even Ghana. It’s market forces working globally; even in Egypt, Turkey, they are losing doctors. There is a high mobility in the health sector internationally. So, we should not knock ourselves as if we are just the only victims on earth,” he added.
However, Ehanire said the government was seeking ways to improve the conditions of service for health workers including allowances and remuneration so that doctors don’t just receive grade level salary paid to other workers, but their performance can indeed be measured and be rewarded for the work done.
“What we are also going to do is what we call conversion of brain drain to brain gain We are doing that with a new mechanism that is being set up to engage Nigerian doctors, pharmacists sand nurses in Diaspora and connect them with home universities because modern technology makes it possible for someone to be giving lectures. They can be affiliated with the teaching hospitals and come with cutting knowledge and skills,” the minister stated.
