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NCDC, LUTH partner to fight infectious diseases

By Azeez Olorunlomeru
26 June 2022   |   2:04 am
The Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), and Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), have pledged to strengthen institutional collaboration in fighting infectious diseases

The Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), and Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), have pledged to strengthen institutional collaboration in fighting infectious diseases after successfully managing COVID-19.

 
Part of the collaboration, according to the Chief Medical Director of LUTH, Prof Chris Bode, while welcoming the Director-General of NCDC, Dr. Ifedayo Adetifa, to the hospital on Friday, is the building of a 40-bed isolation centre at LUTH, jointly financed by the NCDC and the World Bank.

Chairman, Medical Advisory Committee, Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), Prof. Wasiu Adeyemo (left); Chief Medical Director, Prof. Chris Bode; Director General, Nigeria Centre for<br />Disease Control (NCDC), Prof. Ifedayo Adetifa; and Director of Administration, LUTH, Mr. Babajide Grillo, when the NCDC DG paid an advocacy visit to LUTH.<br />

 
He said since Dr. Adetifa came on board as the D.G of NCDC, he had brought his vast skills on vaccine impact and monitoring to bear, while also expanding the frontiers of managing not only the COVID-19 pandemic but also other emergent diseases such as Ebola and Monkeypox.
 
Bode said Adetifa, who had his residency training at LUTH, was returning to familiar turf as he expressed confidence that the visit would provide an opportunity to further cement the cooperation between LUTH and NCDC.
 
He recalled the “wonderful working relationship and collaboration with LUTH,” especially since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic
outbreak.
 
“Many institutions closed up and shut down in the raging days of the pandemic. We cannot blame them; the fear was high as apocalyptic predictions were made for the African landscape.

We in LUTH, however, stepped up to the plate and did our own heavy lifting in contribution to the national efforts to contain the disease,” he said.

   
The CMD disclosed that LUTH’s department of community medicine was closely involved in contact tracing and was part of the policy-making at the emergency operation centre.
   
He said its clinicians admitted and treated over 1,000 cases, most with multiple co-morbidities requiring multi-disciplinary management.
 
Bode said psychiatrists at the hospital established the emotional and psychosocial support group that was later adopted by Lagos State to render invaluable psychosocial support for patients and relations of
COVID-19.
 
He said LUTH trained other hospitals and caregivers from many states on the management of COVID-19 isolation centres while acknowledging top-class collaborative research efforts with the NCDC on the pandemic.

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