By Chioma Obinna & Chinelo Azike

The Lagos State government on Tuesday carried out a sensitisation programme to educate community leaders, on preventive measures on COVID-19 to prevent larger outbreak.

The Lagos State Commissioner for Health, Prof. Akin Abayomi, who disclosed this at the Stakeholders’ Forum on the Management and Control of COVID-19 in Lagos State, said since the Ebola outbreak in Nigeria, Lagos state has been building capacity to handle further outbreaks.

Abayomi said: “We always knew it was going to happen. It was not a matter of if, it was a matter of when and when has happened. I am glad to tell you with the support of Mr Governor, other colleagues in cabinets and all the health care professionals in our 27 General hospitals, our 300 primary health care facilities and our teaching hospitals, I am happy to tell you that Lagos is ready.”

However, the Lagos State commissioner said the state can withstand an outbreak (like coronavirus) but may not be able to withstand a very large outbreak, hence, the reason for the stakeholders forum was to educate community leaders on preventive measures.

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He said, “We are going to be relying on you for information sharing at the community level, to perform good personal hygiene and to ensure that if you are sick you remain at home and you request medical attention.

“You do not move around if you have a cold, cough, flu that you do not spread it to other people at work, if may not be Coronavirus, it may be the normal flu or cold but this is the time when we need to emphasize that it is important when you are sick with a flu or a cold that you do not spread it, you wash you hands regularly,

“If you sneeze, you make sure you are at a distance from anybody else, you sneeze into a handkerchief or a tissue and you discard and you wash your hands.

“As often as you can wash your hands the better for you. “In our schools we are teaching our children now to perform good personal hygiene, let it become a habit, when your children come home make sure the first thing they do is to go and wash their hands. It is good practice and we should teach our children that.

“When we gather in crowded places like this in our places of worship or in our rallies, let us ensure that there is no cross ventilation, this is a perfect environment, there is a lot of breeze, there is good fanning systems. This is the kind of place that we know is safe and secure. The commissioner said some people who are coming with certain symptoms particularly travellers, are presenting themselves at the facility at Yaba and being tested of the virus.

“If they are negative, we will allow them to go about their normal business, if they are positive and we haven’t got a case yet, we will keep them in our facility”

The Representative of the World Health Organisation, WHO, Ifeanyi Okwudor, applauded Lagos state government for its level of preparedness in tackling the coronavirus disease.

Okwudor said: We just want to thank Lagos state government and the Ministry of Health. If we do the right thing, by practicing all the preventive measures, the outbreak can actually be curtailed.

He assured that WHO will continue to support Lagos government and Nigerian government in the fight against coronavirus.

Vanguard News Nigeria.