Preparedness of Anambra State Government towards the COVID 19 pandemic- INFORMATION.
- By Sir Melie Onyejepu

1. On January 15th, the Ministry of Health in conjunction with other Public Health agencies went into Alert mode on the Lassa fever outbreak and between 19th-29th Jan, 2020 activated a response mode for both Lassa fever and Covid 19.

2.Immediately they commenced and activated surge contact tracing using trained surveillance teams in the 21 local Government councils of the state, hence monitoring and receiving calls from the public.

3.This early activation strategy assisted the state to follow up five (5) Chinese active cases that flew into the country and headed into the state on 25th January 2020, quarantined them and sent trained personnel daily for 2 weeks to monitor these active cases.
Afterwards they were given a clean bill of health.

4. On January 27th, NCDC declared the first index case; an Italian who flew into the country. Through the efforts of the Executive Governor, Anambra state was already in a response mode unlike most states.

5. The Ministry of Health, WHO and NCDC continue to train our personnel to ensure readiness.

6. Facility readiness
(i) Anambra state has identified and upgraded surge facilities in readiness for any surge arising from index and contact cases.
a. Emaculate Health Multispecial Hospital, Aguleri. b. NYSC camp (which is the biggest).
c. Nawgwu General Hospital.

(ii) The state has equally set up activation centers in:
a. General Hospital, Onitsha
b. Amaku Teaching Hospital
c. NAUTH, Nnewi (under collaboration).

7. Anambra state currently has over 500 protective kits with another 5,000 that will be ready by next week. Over 10,000 COVID 19 test kits will arrive in the state as well by early next week.

8. Ventilators - Currently, Anambra state has the following spread of ventilators which are critical machines in the management of COVID 19 patients:
a. Amaku Teaching Hospital - 4
b. St Joseph Hospital Adazi -2
c. Others include those in private and Federal Hospitals who are in collaboration with the state government.
d. NAUTH - 1
e. Life Hospital - 6
f. Crown hospital - 2
g. New Hope - 2

9. Based on WHO recommended standards treatment for COVID 19, Anambra state has credible quantities in stock of HydroxyChloroquine, Azythromycine, Augumentine and other valuable drugs for the management of the virus in case needed.

10. As the State is making serious efforts to ensure that they are ready and highly sensitive towards this public health menace, the major comparative strength and success Anambra is building lies on prevention which is very key in the containment of this sort of pandemic. This is a strategy the state used successfully in the containment of the Lassa fever outbreak few years ago.

11. A lot of commendable work has been done in the areas of developing a prevention and containment strategy which lies squarely in community risk mitigation which is not limited to an awareness campaign, shut downs, promoting hand washing in motor parks by providing facilities for such, enforcement etc.

The Governor who earlier announced the set up of an action committee on COVID-19 headed by himself, has assured the public of "his administration's determination to do it's best to preserve life and restore normalcy within the shortest possible time."

Good preparation but lack of equipments. If the test kits is coming from China, I hope it doesn't just go into use without some kind of trial and approval because reports coming out of Spain and Czech republic is that the test kits from China doesn't work and large chunk of it was returned. So the government should be careful as that could be worse than the virus itself.

Lastly, with no none case in anambra, why did the state shut down ?

Lastly, with no none case in anambra, why did the state shut down ?[/quote]


Prevention is always better than cure, they say. Remember, when this whole coro wahala started in China, America and Britain were like, wetin come concern us, as na China de thing de hala, but today, ...............

How come no igbo man has contacted or died of this disease yet?

Charleys:
How come no igbo man has contacted or died of this disease yet?

Are you praying for that to happen?. Well Enugu State has two case as of this morning.