Following palpable fears about the spread of the pandemic, Coronavirus, the Rivers State Commissioner for Health, Professor Princewill Chike has I formed that the state government has activated its surveillance on the COVID-19 in order to check the trend of the disease in the event of its detection in the state.
This became a follow up to a series of awareness campaign put in place to reach out to different stakeholders in the state.
At a one-day sentizisation parley with religious leaders by the state commissioner of health, Prof. Chike said that the state government had enhanced and strengthened surveillance measures to prevent the spread of the scourge in the state due to the influx of the people within and around through international trade and traffic routes.
The commissioner said measures taken so far include,”raising awareness to all category of the population, screening measures at every entry point and raising preparedness level to alert mode through what he described as Multi-sectoral Emergency Preparedness Technical Working Group, specifically dedicated to the risk of COVID-19 importation.”
The Commissioner added that government had equally embarked on proactive measures such as the setting up of a 5-man committee on aggressive awareness creation for the disease.
He informed that the religious leaders were involved in the awareness meeting so that the message can cascade down to their members.
It would be recalled that stakeholders across different bodies have been scheduled for awareness campaign with a view to reaching out to the larger society. The critical stakeholders include the media, members of the National Union of Road Transport Workers, NURTW, school leadership, Nigerian Labour Congress, NLC, among others.
