Tobias Sylvester
The Nigerian Senate on Tuesday called for a travel ban on high-risk coronavirus infected countries such as China, Italy, United Kingdom, United States and others.
This call was made during Tuesday’s plenary session by Ibrahim Oloriegbe, the health committee chairman.
According to Oloriegbe, in addition to the ban, other prevention and control practices should be adopted to fight the Coronavirus pandemic.
He said: “If it is possible, people should not travel to countries with high risk of the cases especially in Europe where many countries are affected, unless such trips are very important.
“Government should also consider disallowing non-Nigerians from countries of high risk from entering the country. Government should also increase capacity about checking airports.”
He said Nigeria currently has only five centres where testing can be done, and that the federal government has to step up the testing capacity, and provide support for state governments.
Reacting, Senate President Ahmad Lawan said: “We are very lucky and fortunate, but we shouldn’t push our luck too far. We should be very observant of all those regulations the technical experts give us,” he said.
“There is a need for the federal government to do a little more, especially in the area of testing centres. The entire north and south-east have no testing centres and it shouldn’t be so.
“Also, for the isolation centres the state governments are building, the ministry of health should come out with a standard which will be replicated in all the states.
“So we need to through our committees, ensure we work with the ministry of health to work with the states to ensure the isolation centres are standardised.”
The call is coming just few hours after Nigeria confirmed the third case of coronavirus in Lagos State.
The Lagos State Ministry of Health said the infected, a 30-year-old Nigerian female who returned from the United Kingdom on Friday, observed self-isolation, developed symptoms and tested positive for the virus.
