Nigeria’s fight against the COVID-19 pandemic has received a major boost, as the country, yesterday took delivery of 26 ventilators and other equipment from the World Health Organisation (WHO).
Africa Daily News, New York reports that Nigeria also took delivery of 3,560 fingertip oxygen pulse oximeters as authorities step up efforts to curb the spread of the disease in the period of a third wave.
Minister of Health Dr. Osagie Ehanire received the donated items on behalf of the Federal Government on Thursday in Abuja.
‘We thank you and appreciate these additional assets as we have to deal with the fears of the third wave of COVID-19,‘ Ehanire told the WHO’s Country Representative Dr Walter Kazadi, who presented the items to him.
Quite coincidentally, the items were delivered on the same day Nigeria recorded its highest daily infections in six months, amid a strike by resident doctors in the country and growing concerns about widespread protocol violations by citizens.
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Dr Ehanire expects the ventilators to come in handy in the race to halt the spread of the pandemic.
‘Ventilators are becoming very useful, especially for early response in the period of COVID-19, and even after COVID-19, they will remain assets all over the country,’ he said.
Dr Kazadi believes Nigeria has performed relatively well in containing the first and second waves of the pandemic.
He also found Nigeria’s national case fatality rate which he put at 1.3 percent, a level that was half the regional average, encouraging.
AFRICA DAILY NEWS, NEW YORK
