The Federal Government on Thursday said it was working to add dexamethasone amongst the drugs used for the treatment of coronavirus patients.
“We are going to ask our clinicians to consider it in their trial,” Osagie Ehanire, minister of health, said at the daily briefing of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 in Abuja.
“These are not medicines that we should be using, these are medicines that doctors use and luckily, this medicine is not new. It is used for other purposes. It is a steroid that is used for general purpose and is found to be useful in this case,” Ehanire said.
“It is easy to try, it does not have side effect, the usual dosage is well known and it is not terribly expensive or terrible unavailable. So we are going to ask our clinicians to consider adding it to the trial to see the results in our circumstance,” he said.
Dexamethasone has been approved by the World Health Organisation WHO as “cure” drug for the treatment of critically-ill coronavirus patients. The drug whose initial trials have been proved successful, according to the health minister, will now be approved by Nigeria for the treatment the disease.
Ehanire said the Ministry of Health would also be prioritising the procurement of oxygen generators alongside ventilators, adding that “experience so far shows that oxygen supplementation is in high demand in treatment”.
He announced the signing of a bilateral agreement between Nigeria and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea on cooperation in the area of public health and medical sciences.
The agreement, he said, is to start cooperation between both countries in these areas of exchanging experience in public health and health sciences, as well as the facilitation of visits by scientists and exchanging information in research.
The minister, while also speaking on the current strike by members the National Association of Resident Doctors, acknowledged that the doctors “have issues that they are frustrated about” but stated that government was engaging with them with a view to halting the strike they embarked upon since Monday.
Ehanire noted that he had a cordial discussion with the resident doctors earlier on Thursday.
“It is clear that there are some things they are frustrated about and justifiably, and many of the things that they reported did have merit,” he said.
He said that some of the issues are directly related to government at the subnational levels but assured that the government would work within stipulated processes.
Ehanire also warned that the increasing number of COVID-19 cases should be a warning that the case fatalities could be increasing, adding that “there are measures we can take to limit the fatality rate”.
The first is that since the cases of fatalities are with persons over 60 years of age or have pre-existing ailments like diabetes, cancer, hypertension, kidney diseases, HIV, among others, this group of citizens labelled the special citizens of the COVID-19 can be specially protected,” he said.
“This protection begins with them limiting their exposure to COVID-19 infection by opting to stay at home except when there is an urgent need to go out,” he said.
He also advised them to wear a face mask any time they are outside the house or when inside the house with persons who may have been exposed and also observe other non-pharmaceutical protocols.
“I must also emphasise that going to places where there could be a crowd like the market, places of entertainment, or places of worship carries risk of exposure because you don’t know who is standing next to you and who has it,” Ehanire said.
“I also want to emphasise that being in a closed room or environment increases room for exposure in proportion to the number of people at the length of time spent with them,” he said.
Sani Aliyu, national coordinator of the PTF, said the task force continues to be concerned about the issue of compliance with the safety protocols.
“The fact that we are receiving many reports on the flouting of the guidelines by individuals, groups and organisations is unacceptable. Covid is far from over globally. There is no doubt that a lot of community transmission is happening, and it continues to increase across the states,” he said.
Meanwhile, hopes of resumption of domestic flights on June 21 appear dashed as Musa Nuhu, director general of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Agency (NCAA), said the date was not feasible because the agency was still making adequate preparations to ensure safe and secure flights.
“We never said aviation is going to start definitely on the 21st of June. We are supposed to put our report back based on what we have. We have some work to do and as such 21st is not a feasible date to resume operations on domestic flights,” Nuhu said while fielding questions during the PTF briefing, Thursday.
“We will not approve the start of operations on any date until we are sure and confirm that we are ready to start safe, secure and organised operations. To do otherwise will be disastrous for all of us,” he said.
