How to contain coronavirus in Nigeria, by Postgraduate Medical College

To effectively contain coronavirus in Nigeria, consultant medical doctors at the National Postgraduate Medical College of Nigeria (NPMCN) have canvassed collaboration between the Federal and state governments on policies, guidelines and implementation to mitigate factors, diagnostic methods and treatment of patients.

President of NPMCN, Dr. M. M. Borodo and Vice President, Dr. A. O. Osibogun, yesterday declared that there was the need for provision of funds to strengthen research capability to engender faster diagnostic tools, therapeutics, epidemiological patterns, socio-cultural determinants of spread and vaccines development.

They also called for strengthening of capabilities of states and councils in the epidemiological field work in surveillance, active case search, contact tracing and management of mild, moderate and severe COVID-19 patients.

The NPMCN also stressed the need for compulsory use of face masks in public places to partly make for our inefficient lockdown and social distancing measures.

It charged its fellows and associate fellows to continue to support the COVID-19 fight, while playing safe by making their expertise available for the treatment of patients and provision of human resource skills for diagnosis of COVID-19, among others.

Besides, it stressed the need for open global research, saying it would assist in the treatment and control of coronavirus in the country.

“Open science and global collaboration will help in sharing scientific research findings on the pandemic at all levels, as well as encourage transparent and communication of scientific knowledge among professionals,” a statement from the college added.

Meanwhile, a medical doctor in Anambra State, Dr. Uzoh Frank, has backed his colleagues and other health workers in their demand for suitable working equipment, saying the demands were necessary and in the right direction.

While reacting to insinuations that some medical facilities across the states of the federation were no longer attending to patients for fear of contracting coronavirus, he told The Guardian in an interview in Awka yesterday that since COVID-19 was a medical challenge, it actually demanded that doctors and health workers should be integrated into the system to participate as decision/policy makers in the fight against the pandemic.

According to Frank, people have been coughing, sneezing, having pneumonia and other symptoms and were treated, lamenting that these symptoms could spell doom for medical practitioners at the moment and should be handled with utmost caution.