COVID-19: NULGE urges FG to extend lockdown

…insists two weeks not enough for contact tracing

Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE) has called on the Federal Government to further extend the two weeks lockdown to allow enough time for contact tracing of all cases. 

The NULGE President, Ibrahim Khaleel, in an interview with Journalists maintained that the initial two weeks is not sufficient to get all the cases traced out.

“At the expiration of the two weeks lockdown, the federal government should consider extending the lockdown because this two weeks may not be sufficient to get all the cases trace out.

“That was our thinking as people that are more connected to rural people. We are watching and observing what is happening in the rural areas.

Though, there is no clear case of Coronavirus yet in any hamlet so far as all the cases traced so far are from the cities, we have already sensitized our chapters to sensitize our people in the rural areas on the need to be watchful and adopt the preventive measures as outlined by the professional on ensuring that they wash their hands regularly, use hand sanitizers and also avoid overcrowded places.

“We did our best in enlightening our members and we are a bit worried particularly on the health infrastructures available in rural areas.

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Peradventure we have this pandemic in the rural areas, there is no way it can be tackled.

This is because if you look at the capacity and availability of medical infrastructures in the rural areas it is not encouraging.”

He also appealed to the Federal government to address the issues of abandoned projects of medical facilities in the rural communities which according to him would go a long way to assist in the fight as most of the facilities who are mostly 70-80 percent near completion could be used very useful in times like this.

“So on this note, I want to use this medium to call on the Federal Government as a matter of urgency and strategic importance to ensure that even if its from the contributions made by individuals, abandoned projects which was initiated in collaboration with the Federal Government and ALGON some years ago especially on the construction of some rural clinics under the Primary Health Care arrangement should be completed. 

“Abandoned projects in the rural areas should be given good attention this time around. The projects were also sited in remote areas considered without health facilities spread across the 774  local govnment areas but unfortunately, completion is the problem.

So, it is important for the Federal Government to do something, mostly as the projects have reached up to 70 to 80 per cent completion.

“So, what is remaining is about 30 to 20 per cent completion. So I will call on the Federal Government to ensure the completion of such projects as they would strategically address issues such as what is happening today.

“The records of death is downplayed, because some of the people infected are disconnected from the records and I believe strongly that some death that have occurred, most especially in remote areas have link with Coronavirus but because of the disconnect in records maybe in tracing the contacts that spread among some of the people infected that are identified and even some of the people yet to be identify.

So, the probability of that is there.

“The best way to address this kind of situation is to ensure that the local governments PHC units are functioning very well and infrastructures are adequately on ground because they can actually complement the efforts of the NCDC.

NCDC is like the tertiary facilities and it has no bearing with the rural areas and you can’t remove the probability of having some people being infected spreading to the rural areas.

“There is more cases that have not been traced by NCDC because their structure is central and if you are doing something like this, it must be bottom top approach because top bottom approach does not yield the required results and all these gap must be breach.” Said Khaleel