….Says citizens must unite towards tackling it
The Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire, has stated that the ravaging third wave Delta variant of COVID-19 is more transmissible and dangerous adding that “it can be defeated if all citizens play their part in the fight against the pandemic.”
Health Minister, Ehimare
Ehanire, stated this on Thursday, August 12, in Abuja at the weekly ministerial briefing organized by the Presidential Communications Team, led by Mr Femi Adesina, the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity.
According to him, if everybody plays his/her role, such efforts put in by individuals and organizations will complement the national response by the government.
He said: “If we work together, not only government, it also has to do with citizens, agencies and not the least, the media, we do have a good chance of scaling through this COVID-19 third wave threat.
“I want to thank all Nigerians for the support and participation so far, which has made this battle controllable.
“The successful implementation of the non-pharmaceutical interventions and public health measures since we started this vaccination and since this epidemic came in remains very important.
“Therefore, everyone has a role to play; government, citizens, media, partners, nongovernmental organizations, community-based organizations, civil society organizations, traditional rulers, political leaders, and community leaders all have a role to play in this collective effort.”
While giving the current status of the disease in the country, Ehanire said as of Aug. 11, the number of confirmed cases stood at over 179, 000.
“As of Aug. 11, 2021, the government of Nigeria has confirmed the following statistics which by now may have changed a little bit; that the total number of confirmed cases is 179, 118, active cases are 10,783.
“The number of discharged cases, 166,144 and sadly the number of fatalities is 2194.
“So we have declared that Nigeria is officially in the 3rd wave of COVID-19 pandemic and as you know, it has already spread in many parts of the world mostly in India where it was first recognized spreading to other parts of the world and also Africa, including West Africa,” he said.
According to the minister, cases of the virus have started to rise for several weeks, saying there has been an increase in fatalities recorded in the past four weeks.
Ehanire said Nigeria was concerned about the Delta variant because “it is more transmissible and dangerous’’.
He added: “The country is particularly concerned about the Delta variant because it is much more transmissible and it has been estimated to be 60 per cent more transmissible, which means that where one virus of the previous variants would infect 100 people, this particular variant will infect 160 people and that is a lot.
“Secondly, this variant is also of concern because it affects even younger people. Before now we did say that younger people might likely get away or escape from the infection.
“It does not discriminate too much whether you have underlying illnesses or not,” he said.
