NMA, TUC REJECT FG’S PLAN TO INVITE CHINESE DOCTORS TO FIGHT COVID-19
It said: “Based on a review of evidence and expert assessment, we recommend that physicians should not prescribe, and individuals should not take Chloroquine or Hydroxychloroquine to prevent or treat COVID-19 except under clinical trial or monitored emergency use of unregistered or investigational interventions (MEURI). These drugs can cause neurological, ophthalmic, cardiac and other forms of toxicity.
“Physicians should not prescribe and individuals should not take Lopinavir/ Rotinavir, Remdesivir or other medications to prevent or treat COVID-19 except under clinical trial or MEURI.”
It, however, recommended that paracetamol, acetaminophen or ibuprofen may be used to relieve symptoms of fever and/or myalgia due to viral infection.
It said physicians should use evidence-based guidance when treating patients with COVID-19 infection, such as that published by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
“Clinical trials and MUERI should follow WHO guidance on ethical issues in infectious disease outbreaks.
“We will continuously update its guidance based on the latest available clinical evidence,” it said.
The United States Centres for Disease Control and Prevention also warned that using Chloroquine phosphate without a prescription and supervision of a healthcare provider can cause “serious health consequences.”
The CDC said doctors and other public health officials should discourage the public from misusing non-pharmaceutical Chloroquine phosphate (a chemical used in home aquariums) and further advised patients and the public that Chloroquine, and the related compound Hydroxychloroquine, should be used only under the supervision of a healthcare provider as prescribed medications.
UBTH Confirms Three, Isolates 24 Health Workers
The University of Benin Teaching
Hospital (UBTH) has isolated some of its health workers exposed to COVID-19 patients, the Chief Medical Director of the hospital, Prof. Darlington Obaseki, has said.
In a statement made available to THISDAY yesterday, Obaseki said the health workers were exposed to the patients prior to the confirmation of their status.
He said: “We have so far received three patients who have been confirmed positive with COVID-19. The two surviving patients are currently being cared for by our dedicated staff in an isolation ward with restricted access.
“Prior to confirmation of their COVID-19 status, some of our healthcare staff was exposed to them while using only personal protection, which includes surgical face-masks and gloves.”
He said currently, all the staff that were exposed to the patients were asymptomatic and that they were being monitored closely according to current guidelines.
He said: “Further measures have been put in place to ensure that our staff are not unduly exposed to risks of infection with COVID-19 in the course of them providing care for patients who come to the hospital for various reasons.
“Healthcare workers are on the front lines in this pandemic and therefore at a higher risk of being exposed than the general public.”
Pandemic Has Exposed Poor Quality Leadership in Nigeria, Says Okogie
In a former Archbishop of Lagos,
Cardinal Anthony Olubunmi Okogie, has said the outbreak of COVID-19 has been a dangerous yet a revelatory moment in Nigeria, having exposed the low-grade leadership style of government.
According to him “It is dangerous because this deadly pandemic has infected over a million and killed thousands of citizens of our planet. No one seems to know when and how it will end. But COVID-19 is also revelatory, a blessing in disguise because it has exposed Nigeria as a country where the quality of leadership is of low grade. What we have known but has been denied for so long is now shown to us as an incontrovertible fact that the quality of leadership in our country must improve.”
The cardinal, in a statement at the weekend, which he personally signed, however, said in the midst of poor-quality leadership, Nigerians must speak in laudatory terms about Sanwo-Olu; his Commissioner for Health, Abayomi, and his entire team for rising to the occasion.
“For right or wrong reasons, Lagosians have been critical of his government since its inauguration on May 29, 2019. But it must be admitted that with a population said to be close to 15 million, if Governor Sanwo-Olu and his team had not provided outstandingly exemplary leadership, we would have had a more dangerous situation in our hands,” he said.
Okogie added: “At the risk of making a hasty judgment, it is to be placed on record that, as at the time this is being written, Sanwo-Olu and his team have largely prevented the spread of the virus in Lagos.
“Let us pray for them and encourage them so that they will continue to show exemplary leadership to other political office holders in Nigeria.”
According to him, “COVID-19 has also revealed to us that, rather than invest in good health care service delivery in Nigeria, we have a political arrangement that makes it possible, even encouraging, to waste Nigeria’s money on government officials and health tourism abroad. Thanks to our country’s constitution dubbed federal. The government in Nigeria is embarrassingly big, sinfully expensive, prone to corruption, and scandalously inefficient. Nigeria cannot adequately invest in the sectors of health and education because, among other reasons, the constitution of Nigeria has established offices that will require an endless flow of petrol-dollars to maintain.”