There may have been an upsurge in the continued increase in the spread of the coronavirus in Imo State.
“The more people we test the more cases we get.”
This was the very statement of the chairman, Imo State Task Force on COVID-19, Prof. Maurice Iwu. He spoke on ‘Good Morning Nigeria,’ an NTA panelists’ programme, from Owerri, via Skype, on Tuesday, June 30, 2020. The topic was “COVID-19 Latest Guidelines.”
Iwu said that one thousand five (1500) people are tested daily, but putting the required target samples at one hundred thousand people per a day, reiterating that the state had recorded only two deaths officially from the virus.
“…many more people have been found negative after treatment than those that actually died from it… We have only had about two direct deaths attributed to the coronavirus. Others have been treated and have been treated very successfully and they went home. So we’re trying to pass on the message that it is very, very important to get to know the number of people who are infected so that they don’t spread the disease without knowing they have it. And we’re also trying to curtail the so-called super spreaders, namely: those who go to weddings, funerals, markets and so on…”
Iwu expressed concerns over the opening of inter-state borders as this may increase the spread of the virus, adding that the average Nigerian does not believe that coronavirus exist, expressing the fear that it is really a problem, over an avoidable disease.
He enumerated the measures the State Government has been putting in place in this direction, urging the bereaved to bury their deceased ones quietly without unnecessary crowds and funfair, saying that this would help to reduce the spread too.
In another breath, he added: let’s adhere to what the Federal Government has said: “If you don’t have your face mask you don’t move. If you don’t have your face mask you don’t go to public places. If people comply with laid down rules things will get better.”
On his concerns for the validation for cure of the coronavirus drugs in the country, the professor of pharmacognosy stated that medicine, whether natural, traditional, or synthetic, is a medicine; and should be tried to be subjected to a rigorous scientific validation.
He explained that he sent his sample to the National Institute of Health in the U. S. because it has the capacity and capability to test it.
But from his statement it appears his sampled specimen is not among the ones chosen by the foreign institute for clinical testing.
NIGERIAN HORN
