COVID-19: Federal Government Worries About Resurgence
The Federal Government of Nigeria has warned that there may be possible re-emergence of COVID-19 in the country if citizens fail to take adequate preventive measures.
Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire, who sounded the warning yesterday, at a bi-weekly COVID-19 media briefing organised by the Health Promotion Department of the ministry in Abuja, expressed worry as another wave of the virus hit China and some parts of Europe, leading to renewed lockdowns.
He cautioned that it would be disastrous to let down guard as the pandemic could flare up in the country, saying that re-emergence from country to country despite the high uptake of vaccines still comes as a surprise, and enjoined Nigerians to desist from non-essential crowding and to continue to apply non-pharmaceutical measures, like wearing of protective face masks, washing of hands, sanitising and being careful at all times.
Speaking on government's efforts toward aligning the rate of population growth with the rate of economic growth, the Minister said plans were underway to accelerate implementation of fertility control interventions, improve family planning and childbirth spacing to scale up meaningful control of the population growth rate and also support economic growth rate.
Dr Ehanire, maintained that government's priority is to improve the health indexes of the country, noting that the ministry cannot achieve it without the cooperation of the public especially the media, which he described as the interface between the government and the public.
He called for multi-national and multi-sectoral approaches to propelling the country towards attaining the universal health coverage and affirmed the ministry's commitment to restructuring the country's health sector in line with global best practices.
The health minister also disclosed that the federal government targets is to increase contraceptive consumption prevalence rate of 27% by the year 2030 and sustainably increase it to 65% by 2050 and called for multi sectoral partnership with the National Population Commission, NPC, and other stakeholders to enable the ministry achieve the intervention goals.
On her part, a Director from the Primary Health Care Agency, Dr Nneka Onwu, said the number of fully vaccinated people in Nigeria stands at over 14 million, adding that currently, the total number of doses of COVID-19 vaccine in the country is 74 million.
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