NCDC, LUTH to deepen collaboration in fight against COVID-19

Prof Chris Bode, Chief Medical Director (CMD) Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), said institution would streghten its collaboration with Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) to fight COVID-19.

Bode spoke with the News Agency of Nigeria on the sideline of the NCDC visitation to LUTH in Lagos on Saturday.

He said since Dr Ifedayo Adetifa came on board as the D-G of NCDC, he had brought his vast skills on vaccine impact and monitoring to bear.

He said he had expanded the frontiers of managing not only the COVID-19 pandemic but also a number of other prevailing diseases.

Bode said that Adetifa had his residency training at LUTH and the visit was a homecoming.

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 do not blame them, the fear was high as apocalyptic predictions were made for 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 said LUTH laboratories first diagnosed the disease.

He said the hospital 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 1000 cases, most with multiple co-morbidities requiring multi-disciplinary management.

He said LUTH psychiatrist 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.

Bode said that LUTH trained other hospitals and squares from other states on how to set up their own effective COVID-19 isolation centres.

He said its researched efforts on the pandemic were top class and the hospital was proud of all it had achieved in collaboration with the NCDC.