The LifeBank group in partnership with the Ekiti State government has concluded plans to conduct COVID-19 test on no fewer than 1,500 frontline health workers and civil servants in the state.
The founder and Chief Executive Officer of LifeBank, Mrs Temie Giwa-Tubosun, who revealed this at the weekend in Ado-Ekiti, the state capital, during the unveiling of the kits for the test said 1000 health workers and 500 civil servants would be examined in a bid to stem the tide of the second wave of the ravaging COVID-19 in the state.
She explained that the health workers were daily exposed to the virus in their interaction with patients across hospitals hence the decision to start the testing with them to help in reducing the transmission and keep the people save from COVID-19.
According to her, “We are here today to increase the state capacity to test more people and keep residents of Ekiti safe from COVID-19 because we are relentless in our business of saving lives and we believe firmly in reaching the last mile, we have newly partnered with Johnson & Johnson Foundation to provide COVID-19 home sample collection kits that contain all the necessary equipment viable for COVID-19 RT-PCR screening test to 1000 healthcare workers and 500 civil servants in Ekiti State.
“The COVID home sample collection kits are designed to encourage social distancing, reduce contact, and indirectly impact the lives of 3000 people from contracting the virus.
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“All of these efforts are part of our global mission to make a tangible positive impact in healthcare logistics and technology, and our relentlessness to create a world in which far fewer people die due to lack of access to critical medical supplies. Ours is a business of saving lives.”
While encouraging the frontline health workers to make themselves available for the COVID-19 test, Giwa-Tubosun said the results would be made ready as early as possible.
Speaking, the state commissioner for health, Dr Oyebanji Filani, commended the group for the partnership, saying it would help in no small measure to improve the testing capacity of the state in a bid to curtail the spread of COVID-19.
Filani who argued that the best way to minimise the infection in the society is to conduct more test on people noted that the administration of Dr Kayode Fayemi would continue to prioritise the welfare of health workers who are daily facing the risk of COVID-19.
He said: “This is a unique collaboration that helps us to bring together private expertise to help the government. This particular test will help us to ramp up our testing in the state and also, more importantly, a further demonstration of Governor Kayode Fayemi’s commitment to ensuring the welfare of public servants and health workers who are the ones identified to be tested under this unique partnership.”
He said that the state government would be providing the logistics including the human resources to make it successful, saying that the test would be conducted alongside the regular test to members of the public across the state.
COVID-19: Group partners Ekiti govt to test 1,500 health workers, civil servants
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