COVID-19: Lagos Ready To Accept Chinese Molecular Biologists, Logisticians, Not Doctors — Prof. Abayomi

We receive 31,040 fake calls, he laments

Lagos State government on Monday said it is not expecting any Chinese doctors for support to tackle its Coronavirus pandemic, disclosing that it only needs molecular biologists and logisticians.

The State Commissioner for Health, Prof. Akin Abayomi, disclosed while giving an update on battle against Coronavirus pandemic, saying that the state only had in short supply of molecular biologists and logisticians.

The commissioner maintained that the state was ready to accept any molecular biologists and logisticians from any part of the world, including from China, adding
that there was the need for collaboration in tackling the pandemic and China as a country had experience managing the virus which many countries and states in Nigeria did not have.

Abayomi argued that Chinese medical team were free to come to Nigeria if they had been to Italy, US and Europe to render support, querying: “Why can’t they come to Nigeria.”

He appealed to residents to stop making hoax calls to his 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, saying these fake calls cinstituted 80 per cent of the total calls made on the line.

According to him, these fake calls are blocking the state government from attending to those who really need help, as they were unable to reach government through the lines, even as he declared that only nine per cent of the total calls, amounting to 3,610 were valid.

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

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

“This is why residents must own the process by taking necessary precautionary measures, practice social distancing, wash their hands with soap, report suspected cases among others,” he said, warning that if the state had no capacity to handle 5000 in two weeks cases should it experience such as the three labs in Lagos that had capacity to test for Coronavirus could only carry out between 200 to 300 tests a day.

“That’s the reason residents must stay at home and practise social distancing,” he said.

Speaking further, the commissioner disclosed that persons between the ages of 30 and 59 dominated the positive cases that the state Lagos has, saying this was a deviation from the statistics from other climes where the elderly recorded more positive cases.

He attributed the occurrence to the fact that the those in the age bracket are people who are more mobile and travel by air.

According to him, in the coming days the state government hopes to shift attention to Alimosho Local Government, as its statistics show the community is endangered because of the density and the new positive cases from the local government in the last one week.

He revealed that the temporary 100-bed isolation centre built at Onikan was now ready for use and would be commissioned Tuesday.

This was just as he affirmed that though the state treatment of its coronavirus patients had been effective, there was yet no drugs for cure for the virus, adding that the state government was setting up clinical trials from next weeks on its patients and staff.