IHVN boss advocates support for COVID-19 PTF

Chief Executive Officer of the Institute of Human Virology Nigeria (IHVN), Dr. Patrick Dakum, has urged all arms of government to cooperate with the COVID-19 Presidential Task Force (PTF) for smooth emergency response to the coronavirus.

According to Dr. Dakum, distracting the task force with insinuations of limited accountability and calls for the establishment of another body to coordinate the response was uncalled for and unnecessary.

“We are fighting a disease that needs one strategic plan, one monitoring and evaluation plan and clearly one funding plan. This is wrong timing for distractions,” he said.

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Dakum recommended instead, that the already established task force constantly makes a public declaration of inflows and outflows in kind and in cash.

He advised government at all levels to focus on aligning their state plans with the guidelines from the presidential task force and on establishing testing centers in their states.

“States need to be prepared by stocking personal protective equipment to keep health workers safe and isolation beds to handle this pandemic,” he added