The Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 says it has disbursed N1billion each to 32 states in the country for COVID19 responses.
PTF Coordinator, Dr Sani Aliyu announced the disbursement of the sum on Monday during a briefing in Abuja.
“We have released money to the state governments recently, to 32 state governments. Each state government was given a billion naira.
“This is for the purpose of driving their COVID responses and we are asking them to prioritise testing in addition to surveillance activities linked to COVID-19,” he said.
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The Director-General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu, said although their is a decline in the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases government cannot celebrate yet since testing in many states is very low.
“The number of reported cases daily has declined nationally in the last few weeks. We have seen a 36 per cent decline in August compared to July on national figures.
“Unfortunately, we cannot celebrate this until we test sufficient figures in every state,” the NCDC boss maintained.
Speaking also, PTF Chairman and Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) called for greater vigilance both on the part of the government and the citizens.
The SGF stressed that President Muhammad Buhari administration as a serious government is pushing through with reforms that will help the nation’s economy recover from the effect of the virus.
“The call for greater vigilance is underscored by the fact that our economy has been seriously affected by the pandemic and we are pushing through with home-grown economic recovery strategies to cushion the economic impact of the pandemic,” he said.
