The Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 has disclosed that “a lot is going on in the background that the public may not necessarily be aware of in terms of how” it “intends to get on top of the issue” of COVID-19 in Kano.
While speaking on Channels TV, the National Coordinator, Dr Sani Aliyu, disclosed the measures put in place to ensure that the virus is controlled in the city.
“We know that the situation in Kano if it gets out of hand, it would be difficult to control. One of the things that we are also concerned about is the need for community enlightenment when it comes to prevention measures because we know that a certain part of the city does not respect this social distancing and restriction of mass gatherings.
“We are working through the traditional institutions and the religious community in Kano to push the message that this is real. COVID-19 is not a joke, it does kill, it is highly infectious and the only way you can control it is not to allow it to spread. No vaccine and treatment is available”, Aliyu stated.
He also disclosed that tests were also being scaled up as a measure to check the spread.
“We are also propping up the number of tests because we know that the number of tests in the past have not been sufficient enough to define the scale of the problem.
“As we ramp up the tests in Kano, the number will certainly go up before they start coming down”, he postulated.
On the possible spiking up of cases as a result of the easing up of the lockdown like it happened in some European countries, Aliyu explained it this way.
“Nobody has the perfect answer in terms of when it is the best time to lift a lockdown. No country has the right answer. So we have to make sure that as we lift some of the restrictions we have in place, that we closely monitor the numbers and as you are aware, we are about to ramp up testing nationally.
“We have just got one of the large (what we call PCR machine) that is capable of doing 960 tests in every eight hours. So almost certainly, nationally, the number of tests will go up and as the number of tests goes up, proportionally, it is very likely that the number of positives will go up.
“It is an advantage to the program because it means we would be able to identify people and move them out of the communities to stop transmission.
“What we know from modelling studies is that provided the public is in support of the measures and they come together and support all the different elements of the prevention casket; all the different elements when it comes to the prevention of infection, without necessarily staying at home all the time, then that impact will be very similar”.
According to Aliyu, the disease is still around and that people need to protect themselves and others, especially people with a high risk of severe infection like the elderly above the age of 65, those with core morbidities like diabetes, cardiovascular disease and so on.
