… As NCDC says Nigeria records 754 additional COVID-19 infections ***
In the face of the Omnicron variant, the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) has advised that the imposition of lockdown as a measure to contain and manage the spread of the coronavirus should be avoided at all costs.
LCCI President, Dr. Michael Olawale-Cole, gave the advice at a news conference on Thursday in Lagos.
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“While we celebrate the positive Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth recorded all through the three quarters of this year, the recovery of the economy from the impact of COVID-19 in 2020 is still fragile.
“Government must do everything in its power to sustain the positive growth trajectory towards an inclusive and sustainable growth rate.
“Nigeria needs a long-term containment strategy and public health action plan to manage epidemics and pandemics without having to lock down the economy,” he said
Olawale-Cole said that scientists, epidemiologists, and the World Health Organisation (WHO) had recommended vaccination as the most potent protection against the COVID-19 virus.
He, however, noted that developing countries, unfortunately, suffered from a lack of access to vaccines and a weak pharmaceutical manufacturing base.
“In addition, and like in other parts of the world, vaccine hesitancy has been prevalent.
“Recent statistics from Our World in Data indicates that as of 2nd December, the number of vaccines doses administered in Nigeria was 10.9million, translating to about 1.8 per cent of the Nigerian population.
“Meanwhile, South Africa has administered about 26.3million (about 25 per cent of the population), Kenya about 7.58million (5.5 per cent of the population) and Ghana’s vaccination statistics for total doses given stood at 3.5 million, translating to about 2.7 per cent of the population.
“We are obviously lagging behind our peers,” the LCCI President said.
He charged the government to take the pandemic as an opportunity to make sustainable changes and improvements in the Nigerian healthcare sector.
According to him, it is a pathway to accelerating progress toward the achievement of Universal Health Coverage.
Olawale-Cole proposed in the short term that the government develop and deploy strategies, addressing the supply and demand side of vaccination to get more citizens vaccinated.
“The Nigerian Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) needs to conduct quick studies on the new variant and advise the government on the next steps of containment.
“Government needs to clamp down on any existing vaccine card racketeers who issue fake vaccination cards to outbound travelers from Nigeria to developed countries.
“In addition, the government needs to create an intelligence monitoring mechanism to check the utilization of funds allocated to COVID-19 interventions,” he said.
Olawale-Cole also proposed steps that the government should take in the medium to long term.
He said that the government needed to provide the necessary support and enabling environment for the private sector to invest heavily in the manufacturing of vaccines that could meet the nation’s domestic demand and for export.
“In the context of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), this has the potential to be a major source to earn foreign exchange,” he said.
In the same vein, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) said 754 additional COVID-19 infections were recorded on Thursday across 11 states of the federation and the FCT.
The NCDC stated this on its verified website on Friday morning, adding that the country recorded one fatality on Thursday.
It said the 754 cases of COVID-19 on Thursday indicated an increase from the 268 reported on Wednesday.
The NCDC added that the infection toll had increased to 215,918, while the fatality toll from the disease stood at 2,981, as of Thursday.
The public health institute said 4,662 people were currently down with illness from the virus, while 207,619 people had been treated and discharged.
The agency added that Lagos State, the country’s epicentre of the virus, reported more than half of the new cases.
The NCDC said a backlog of 595 confirmed cases for Dec. 8, (294), and Dec. 9 (301), 2021 were from Lagos.
Amongst others, the FCT recorded (68), Imo (49), Edo (13), Oyo (9), Delta (5), Katsina (4), Kano (3), Plateau (3), Ekiti (2), Gombe (2) and Rivers (1).
It said the country had conducted a total of 3,629,527 sample tests since the virus was announced on Feb. 27, 2020.
It added that a multi-sectoral national emergency operations centre (EOC), activated at Level 2, continued to coordinate the national response activities.
