The Minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Enahire has commended the Lagos State Government for its cutting edge preparedness against the outbreak of infectious diseases, especially the Novel Coronavirus which is fast spreading across the world.
Dr. Osagie, during his tour of facilities at Lagos State Infectious Disease Hospital, expressed satisfaction at the level of infrastructure put in place by the State Government to effectively contain any unexpected case of infectious diseases.
He averred that the experience of Ebola in 2014 has assisted the State government in putting mechanisms in place to strengthen the level of preparedness for any unforeseen case of threatening infectious disease.
Osagie, who also inspected Lagos State Bio-bank, the highest Bio-safety level 3 laboratory in West Africa located inside the Mainland Hospital, Yaba, commended the State government for deploying additional 30 health personnel to assist with surveillance at the entry ports.
Dr. Osagie stressed further that the Federal and State Governments have a lot of reasons to collaborate, especially in areas of experiences gathered over the years in combating infectious diseases.
The Commissioner for Health, Prof. Akin Abayomi said that the LASG, through the Ministry of Health, is working hard to prevent an import of Coronavirus into the State and is presently ramping up its preparedness for containment of the disease should there be an outbreak.
The Commissioner noted that the State Government is supporting the Federal Government with staff at the airport, to make sure that anybody coming into Lagos goes through a thorough screening process.
Adding that officials of the State Ministry of Health will monitor persons who recently returned from countries that have person-to-person transmission of coronavirus for 14 days in their homes.
