President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the establishment of at least one oxygen plant in each of the 36 states of the federation.
The Chairman of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19, Boss Mustapha, who announced this during Tuesday’s briefing in Abuja said the President also gave approval for the rehabilitation of five oxygen plants across tertiary health institutions across the country.
” We are pleased to inform you that the private sector – CACOVID has commenced supporting our response with 100 oxygen cylinders per day till the end of March, 2021, for distribution to critical care centres in Abuja.
“Furthermore, approval has been given to rehabilitate five oxygen plants across various tertiary health institutions in Abuja” he said.
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According to the PTF Chairman, progress is ongoing on the issue of accessing vaccines for Nigerians noting that additional information will be provided to Nigerians on accelerated vaccines introduction and deployment plan.
“What is currently confronting us is a critical phase of infections globally. We are constantly reviewing our strategy to emerging situations especially in risk communication, vaccine hesitancy, fake news/disinformation.”
This comes as CACOVID commences the distribution of 100 oxygen cylinders per day to Critical Care centres, till March-end.
The PTF Chairman who lamented the low testing in a number of states said statistics showed that a total number of 958,911 tests have so far been conducted.
” As we have always maintained, testing is a key strategy under the national response. To this end we can report that there are about 100 laboratories across the country. These are 71 public labs; 22 private labs and 7 corporate labs. Collectively, they are to help improve testing in the country.
As at date, the statistics for Nigeria shows the following:
✓ Cumulative cases: 91,351
✓ Cumulative Tests: 958,911
✓ Deaths: 1,318
✓ Week 53 recorded 57 deaths which is the highest for any single week since we started.
✓ There is also a rising rate of infections among health care workers and this calls for the escalation of surveillance.
✓ In Africa, Nigeria has joined South Africa in reporting the highest daily infection cases.
