The President of the Nigerian Medical Association, Professor Innocent Ujah, has urged the Presidential Task Force ( PTF ) on COVID-19 to develop new strategies to curb the spread of the virus, other than social distancing as it has failed in the country.
His words: “The issue of compliance with the NCDC (Nigeria Centre for Disease Control) protocols – the use of face masks, hand sanitisers, and social distancing – is a very big challenge. The issue of social distancing has failed in Nigeria. It is not likely to succeed and therefore we need another strategy, other ways we can improve the compliance to the NCDC protocol.
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“Yes, by and large, many people now use face masks but unfortunately when you go to villages and markets, none of the protocols are practiced at all. Maybe the airlines and a few others like the churches obey these protocols.”
Speaking further Ujah noted, “I have always talked about the research angle of the PTF. We need to find out, we don’t need to speculate, we should have gone to town and gotten a quick response and analyse the data to know why people are not complying, and then we will navigate to see how they will comply.”
The NMA president acknowledged all major stakeholders who have consistently made efforts to put an end to the deadly coronavirus.
Nelson Okoh