The United States government says it has spent $32.8 million on Nigeria’s fight against coronavirus pandemic and vows that there is more on the pipeline.
At a teleconference with journalists on Tuesday, Mary Beth Leonard, the US ambassador to Nigeria, said the country had supported Africa’s Covid-19 fight with $237 million and the world with $2.4 billion since the pandemic started.
She explained that the US had financially and technically supported Nigeria’s health sector over the years, including the country’s fight against polio, malaria and HIV/AIDS, adding that the support was not only in the health sector but also in terms of economic improvement.
Leonard explained that the US would continue to support the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) in terms of peer review, surveillance, contact tracing and all the hard labour involved in curbing the spread of the deadly virus.
“We are in various states, and we are supporting isolation centres,” she said.
The US citizens were recently evacuated from Nigeria to their country where Covid-19 cases and deaths were high. Cases in Africa’s largest economy were fewer than 3,500 as of that time, while the U.S had over one million cases and 40,000 deaths. The action by the US raised eyebrows that the country might have some intelligence about Nigeria which it was hiding.
But Leonard explained that the action was not borne out of any intelligence, but Americans in Nigeria wanted to re-unite with their families.
“When I spoke with them, some said they wanted to reach their families,” she said, adding that others wanted to reach the doctors they knew.
She further said that another group involved Americans coming to Nigeria for the first time who wanted to go back home.
On whether Nigeria should choose lockdown or opening up of the economy, she said countries had to choose the best strategy that would suit them.
The ambassador stressed that the two biggest tasks now were risk communication and social mobilisation.
She further explained that the US government would always monitor the money it donated to Nigeria through strict and technical contract mechanism, peer review and surveillance.
On whether the US was concerned about low level of testing in Nigeria, she said low or poor level of testing was not peculiar to Nigeria, but said the US was so far satisfied with what Nigeria was doing.
Leonard pointed out that President Donald Trump was willing to increase support Nigeria, having had a conversation with President Buhari earlier on providing the country with ventilators.
