Kano scales up campaign to enhance COVID-19 detection, response

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Kano State Epidemiologist, Dr Bashir Lawal said the state government has intensified collaboration with partners to enhance quality detection and response to COVID-19 pandemic.

Lawal made this known on Saturday during a virtual media orientation, organised by the Breakthrough Action-Nigeria, a USAID funded project in collaboration with Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) and other partners.

He said that the state would expand its sample collection centres, adding that it had embarked on mass community testing exercise.

Lawal said the state scaled up activities to stem community transmission through contact tracing and monitoring, as part of strategies to transit to post COVID-19 pandemic.

“The state’s COVID-19 response faced many challenges among which are the decrease in the number of sample collection sites and establishment of more laboratories,” he said.

Lawal explained that community transmission, stigmatisation as well as myths and misconceptions in the society remained a challenge.

Also speaking, Mr Eze Eze of the Breakthrough Nigeria project, said the virtual orientation was designed to create a platform for discussion between the state Task Force Committee on COVID-19 and the media.

Eze said the platform would provide an avenue for better understanding and information dissemination on COVID-19 in the state.

On his part, the co-chairman of the state’s Task Force on COVID-19, Prof. Abdurrazak Habib, shared his experience while on admission at the COVID-19 isolation centre in the past weeks.

Habib explained that his family were stigmatised while he was in isolation, noting that stigma remained an obstacle in disclosing the identities of COVID-19 patients.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that about 50 journalists participated in the virtual orientation. (NAN)

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