Coronavirus: Efforts to test patients for Covid-19 frustrated by Kogi govt - Doctors
- Resident doctors in Kogi have said efforts to test patients of coronavirus are being put under the shaft by the state government
- Agwu Nnanna, president of the association of the doctors, said health officials are put at risk of Covid-19 exposure because of lack of equipment
- Nnanna's frustration was contained in a statement released against the backdrop of NCDC situation report claiming Kogi only did one Covid-19 test
Resident doctors at the Federal Medical Center, Lokoja have raised an anxiety alarm over the Covid-19 free state of Kogi, saying efforts to carry out test on patients have been frustrated by state government thereby exposing them to risk.
Kogi is the only state yet to officially record any case of coronavirus in the country after Cross Rivers.
Amid growing concern, the doctors at the FMC said lack of adequate testing has increased the risk among health workers as Yahaya Bello-led government has been frustrating the efforts to ascertain the presence of the virus in the northcentral state.
Source: UGC
The doctors made their grievance known in a statement on Tuesday, May 19, signed by the president of the Association of Resident Doctors, FMC Lokoja, Agwu Nnanna, The Cable reports.
"Many patients with symptoms suggestive of COVID-19 have been seen severally in the hospital but efforts to get them tested were frustrated by the state government authorities,” Nnanna said.
“There is a palpable fear at the Federal Medical Centre Lokoja as medical doctors and other health workers raise alarm of imminent danger posed by the Covid-19 pandemic to their lives.
Legit.ng recalls that the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) raised a fresh alarm over the Covid-19 status of Kogi, with the agency disclosing that only one test was carried out in the northcentral state.
In its situation reports of Tuesday, May 19, NCDC said since Nigeria recorded its first case in February, a total of 36,899 samples have been tested with 6,175 positive cases. 1,644 cases have been discharged and 191 fatalities recorded in 35 states, including FCT.
Against the backdrop of the NCDC report, Nnanna said that "physicians cannot properly categorize and treat the patients coming into the hospital in accordance with the management protocols.
“The doctors fear that they are at a high risk of contracting the disease and transmitting same to their families and other unsuspecting patients. It is a known fact that without Covid-19 tests."
Nnanna expressed fear that 603 doctors have been exposed, 149 confirmed positive and 7 deaths recorded since the outbreak of the virus in Nigeria.
He called on the stakeholders to ensure that tests are being done to ensure the safety of the healthcare workers.
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Meanwhile, Legit.ng reported that Kogi government has claimed that the state was under pressure to declare the presence of coronavirus as the pandemic spreads across states of the federation.
This was contained in a statement by Kingsley Fanwo, Kogi state commissioner of information and communication, who gave an update on a female expatriate rumoured to have carried coronavirus pandemic.
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Source: Legit.ng
