The Federal Government has urged the United States (U.S.) government to lend its full support to global efforts to eradicate Coronavirus (COVID-19), which has ravaged most economies of the world. NAN reports.
Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire, made the appeal in Abuja on Tuesday while receiving 200 ventilators from the U.S. government, on behalf of the Nigerian government.
The ventilators were presented by the U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria, Mrs Mary Beth Leonard, as part of effort to help the country sustain the fight against Coronavirus.
Ehanire said that the fight against Coronavirus needed the collaboration of all the nations of the world for it to yield effective result.
“I request the U.S. government to lend its full weight to global efforts to find efficacious therapeutic and vaccines to neutralize the threats of COVID-19 to the global community and to guarantee fair allocation to all countries and people.
“The speed and ease at which COVID-19 has spread globally clearly shows that it is a threat to all mankind.
“Without the full collaboration of all nations, the threat of COVID-19 to any one part of the world is a threat to all,” Ehanire said.
According to him, the provision of the ventilators will help to take care of respiratory distress that patients experience as part of the terminal symptoms that follow coronavirus infection.
He said it can also reduce mortality.
The minister said the ventilators would be distributed and allocated to states including the FCT based on needs.
“The ventilators are particularly useful and these ones are very modern and it is electronically controlled.
“Breathlessness is one of the major symptoms of COVID-19 and these machines will help us cure breathlessness but it is also useful in other infections that will affect children like pneumonia.
“It is a big addition to what we have. It is going to be distributed after they have been presented to the Presidential Task Force (PTF).
“It will be allocated based on needs and also on the size of states, especially to hospitals that are able to use them because they are specialized.
“They are not machines you put anywhere, and you must have doctors and nurses that can be able to use them,” Ehanire added.
