The Federal Ministry of Health has recorded the index case of Coronavirus, on Friday, June 19, DATAPHYTE can confirm. An anonymous source who attended the National Council on Health meeting which held virtually confirmed the information to DATAPHYTE on Tuesday.
However, it was a usual workday yesterday when the reporter visited the complex of the Federal Ministry of Health. Men and women, foreigners and nationals were going in and out of the Ministry without any information or knowledge that a member of the Ministry has tested positive to the novel coronavirus.
According to the source, the first case which was confirmed by the test result from Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) is reported to be a staff of the Department of Planning, Research and Statistics.
The infected personnel is currently at the designated VIP isolation centre located in Asokoro, Abuja.
Dr. Meribole, the Director at the Department of Planning, Research and Statistics, said he cannot confirm the claim because he does not have any test results to that effect. However, the source confirmed the Director facilitated the NCDC’s response after initial calls proved abortive. When probed further, Dr Meribole said what the Department is trying to do is related to prevention and ensuring random testing. He further said the request for a random test has been delayed by the strike which was recently called off.
While health workers in the frontline are generally prone to contracting coronavirus, the Federal Ministry of Health has not disclosed this incidence to the staff. There are no special preventive measures for staff and visitors to the Ministry, therefore exposing staff members to the deadly virus.
Even though the reporter sighted the hand wash basin at strategic locations within the complex, there was no officer ensuring that each entrant washes his or her hands. Within 45 minutes of the reporter’s observation, only one person out of over 20 persons who entered the Ministry of Health complex washed his hands. It took him over 5 mins to operate the handwashing device because there was no one to guide him.
Several calls and text messages to the Minister of State for Health, Dr Olorunnibe Mamora to confirm the index case at the Ministry were not returned.
Similarly, interviews of staff around the Ministry revealed they were aware of reports of the index case since last week, but that the Ministry had not taken the necessary steps to protect the staff and visitors. A security man at the gate of the Ministry confirmed that the hint got to them yesterday and they have been advised to enforce temperature checks and compliance to the use of face masks
Most sources who requested anonymity said the Ministry staff are not perceived by the authority as frontline health workers despite their efforts in combating the pandemic, and as such, are not being adequately protected.
A visit to the department of the index case revealed that although the infected staff had been isolated in a treatment centre in Abuja, other affected contacts were however yet to be tested or taken into isolation by the NCDC.
A staff who claimed to be one of the contacts of the index case informed Dataphyte that when confronted with the situation, she called the NCDC but that the lady at the call centre was so rude and unhelpful.
NCDC’s Strike and Existential Problem of Late Response.
When Dataphyte reached out to the infected person, he declined to comment on the matter.
Further investigation, however, revealed that it took the influence of someone close to the NCDC to get him tested. Yet, the result of the test took about 5 days before he was eventually taken into isolation for treatment. The staff of the Centre also declined to comment on the matter for privacy reasons.
It was gathered that NCDC referred the infected person to the FCT Emergency Operations Centre. The Centre however delayed in testing owing to the ongoing strike at the time.
When contacted via WhatsApp for comments, the Chief Executive Officer of Nigeria Centre for Disease Control replied that “NCDC never discusses individual results”. When asked to confirm if there are efforts underway to do random testing at the Ministry of Health, he did not respond to the text message. Also, when asked if any measure towards contact tracing has been initiated, he also did not respond to the message as at the time of this report.
However, our source said some staff were contacted yesterday to come in for testing at the Ministry but could not ascertain if their samples were collected.
There is the palpable fear that many isolation centres in Nigeria have been abandoned, hence the increasing delay in the testing of those suspected Coronavirus infection.
“One has to wonder that if there are delays to testing Federal Ministry of Health staff and if claims by FCT staff that VIP Isolation Centre in Asokoro are also experiencing similar delays, then what is happening in other isolation centres?” Said the Suraju Olarenwaju, the Chairman of HEDA Resource Centre.
Resident doctors within the month, went on an industrial strike complaining about salary payments. The strike was suspended on Monday, June 22. While there are varying opinions about the timing of the strike, there is strong support for the strike. Speaking with Dr Kwalar, a public health practitioner, she said the bigger challenge with the strike is the fate of the common Nigerians who will be impacted by the incidence.
“If people working at the frontline, the health workers who collect samples for tests have not been paid and then highly placed people are experiencing delayed testing, what then is the state of the common man?”
A staff of an international NGO who lost her mother last week to COVID-19 recounted how her aged mother spent 2 days abandoned in the accident and emergency room of Federal Medical Centre Umuahia because she was a suspected case of COVID-19. While she died on the night of the second day, the result of the test was not received until over a week after her death.
Commenting on how difficult it is to access NCDC for testing, she said “the truth is that many people are dying, and they don’t even get the opportunity to be tested. After complaining or experiencing some symptoms, in 3-4 days you are dead. People don’t get the opportunity to get tested and that is the major challenge. ‘
Staff travel across states and return without testing
Speaking with another staff member close to the Minister’s office, she commented that a lot needs to be done to contain the virus. When asked about the possibility that other people in the Ministry have been infected, the staff said, a lot of people in the Ministry, especially those working in close contact with the Minister’s office may be infected.
She said she has gone into self-isolation while awaiting calls for testing by the Ministry or for the NCDC to heed the call to come to test her.
Probing further, she revealed that top officials of the ministry have been allowed to travel to various hotspots of the country on a weekly basis either for work or personal travels.
“From what I can deduce, many of us leave far in Suleja, Mararaba and other far border towns and we take public transport to work and travel across State borders unchecked. That is this small office, not to talk about cleaners and staff of other departments that we don’t know where they live or how they get to work.”
One source stated that the index case may actually not be the first case since there are reports that another staff in the Malaria programme is also infected.
The source who claims to be a staff of one of the Development Partners to the Ministry said “I do not feel safe coming here for meetings anymore as I am sure that we still have large numbers of people sitting at the Ministry that have become ill and have not gone for any testing. It would make sense if all the staff of the Ministry are tested to rule out the further spread and the risk to the family of our staff.”
Ministry of Health Delayed Spending 2.1 billion COVID-19 Funds, Its Prevention Measures are Inadequate
It will be recalled that the National Assembly in a recent probe of expenditure of the Federal Ministry of Health and the NCDC gathered that the Ministry was yet to make any expenditure from the money allocated to the Ministry by the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 in the amount of N2.1 billion
However, the Ministry has recently commenced the payment of hazard allowance for frontline health workers which brought to an end the strike action by resident doctors for non-payment of allowances.
Experts call for Increasing Testing across Nigeria.
Dr Kwalar Okorafor, a public health practitioner while commenting on a need for a proactive approach to flattening the COVID-19 curve in Nigeria said community-level testing centres is an effective way to increase testing and curtailing the spread.
Some states such as Ogun have already set up testing centres where members of the public can go at will and test. The NCDC should support other States to do the same. Teams can be deployed to different strategic locations to collect samples for testing which would then be sent to the laboratories. Such proactive measures can be replicated across the country”
When asked if the cost of such centres would not overwhelm the NCDC, she responded saying,
“I cannot put a figure to it, but money shouldn’t be a problem. I would assume that public buildings, offices, schools and even private buildings would be more than happy to provide space for testing boots at zero cost. All that would then be required would be for the NCDC and State EOCs to provide testing kits, and deploy one or two staff to designated booths. In other words, it would cost almost ‘nothing’ to effectively set up a booth.”