Orders SEMA, State Health Ministry to put preventive measures in place
By Peter Duru – Makurdi
Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue State has expressed deep worry over the safety and protection of the over 483,000 Internally Displaced Persons, IDPs, as well as the 10,000 Cameroonian refugees sheltered in the state following the outbreak of Coronavirus (COVID-19) in parts of the country.
According to the Executive Secretary of the Benue State Emergency Management Agency, SEMA, Dr Emmanuel Shior, the governor also issued marching orders to his agency and the State Ministry of Health to take necessary action to safeguard the IDPs and the refugees.
Dr Shior in a statement yesterday by his Media Assistant, Moses Nongov, said: “the directive from the Governor is that measures should be put in place to ensure that the IDPs and the Refugees were adequately prevented from the Coronavirus.”
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He said sequel to that directive, he led the health personnel, who had been working in the IDPs camps to meet with the Commissioner for Health, Dr Sunday Ongbabo to deliberate on the necessary steps to check an outbreak at any of the facilities.
“The meeting was to adopt a common approach to swiftly provide and equip the health facilities in the IDPs and refugee camps to take care of any eventualities,” Shior said.
He stated that the Health Commissioner on his part “emphasised the need to sensitise and educate the IDPs and refugees on preventive measures to avoid the spread of the virus in the event that there is an outbreak in the camps.”
The number 09018602439 was also made public as the Benue state COVID-19 emergency phone number.
