Nigerian Government Budgets N620 Million To Prevent Outbreak Of Coronavirus In The Country

The Federal Government is considering N620 million special intervention funds by the ministry of health to monitor, detect if possible and contain the deadly coronavirus.

Minister of Health, Osagie Ehanire revealed this on Thursday while interfacing with the Senate committee on health on the level of national preparedness to manage coronavirus break out in the country.

He said the ministry submitted a memo proposing for the release of the sum of N620m to take proactive measures to contain the dreaded virus.

The Minister who appeared before the Senate Committee on Health, in the company of Dr Morenike Alex-Okoh, director port health services and the Director-General National Centre for Disease Control, said the sum of N71 million was already released to the port health services for her operations.

Ehanire said the ministry had a multi-stakeholder meeting to deploy port health services there to screen all passengers.

He said the national intervention on containing the Lassa fever outbreak enjoyed timely release of N313m intervention fund from the Federal Government to manage the outbreak.

Meanwhile, the Senate expressed concerns over the non-screening of the Chattered flight passengers wing of the local flight arrivals at the airports.

The senators expressed fears that it may be a loose end to import the Coronavirus.

Chairman Senate Committee on Health, Ibrahim Oloriegbe, said the absence of health services at the private terminal could make for easy movement of infected bodies into the country.

The Senate, therefore, ordered the Minister to deploy health officials to the private tarmac and conduct screening of VIPs on chartered flight stressing Coronavirus was both a national and global health emergency.

KanyiDaily recalls that the Federal Government shut down Panda Supermarket belonging to some Chinese nationals located in Abuja over issues with the dreaded coronavirus.

The government said that the move was to serve as a deterrent to others and to safeguard the lives of citizens from the deadly Coronavirus.