‘Why it took so long for Cross River to record COVID-19 cases’, by Commissioner for Health Betta Edu
Kogi and Cross River rejected COVID-19 claims way into July, 2020. Cross River's Health Commissioner Betta Edu says there was some method to some of that 'madness'.
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It was the only state left standing (look away now, Kogi), with all of the country’s other 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) of Abuja, reporting COVID-19 cases in double and multiple digits as Nigeria grappled with the pandemic.
“For Cross River State, we started quite early. We started as early as January," Dr Betta Edu, Commissioner for Health in Cross River, tells Pulse as we take her to task on what her state did differently, amid claims that the government was trying so hard to conceal COVID-19 positive cases.
"We went all out to set up an EOC (Emergency Operations Center), sensitize people about the coronavirus pandemic and see how we can work with the communities, with traditional rulers, with religious leaders, to be able to provide the right information for the coronavirus,” she adds.
“Cross River State was one of the states that started the early screening for people who were coming in through our borders--the local airport and other points of entry into Cross River. At this point, there was no recorded case of coronavirus in Nigeria or even Africa. This gave us an edge.
“Cross River also started the ‘no mask, no movement’ in Nigeria, ahead of even the federal government. We were able to provide 1.5 million face masks for our people to protect themselves and protect others even when we had no recorded case of COVID-19 in Cross River.”
Edu says while the mantra worldwide and nationwide was ‘lockdown’ and ‘shutdown’, Cross River implemented a ‘shut-out.’
“These campaigns continued, a task-force was put on the roads, our borders were shut to other states in Nigeria and of course we had to shut the international border to Cameroon.
“We had to work with the local vigilantes, task-force, chiefs and indeed everybody to ensure that we can secure the state and isolate it. We did not do a shutdown or lockdown. We actually did a shut-out.
“We shut everyone out and continued to sensitize our people on why they needed to protect themselves. This gave us an edge in the fight against COVID-19.
“We had the risk communication, where we did a lot of work around sensitization with community leaders, we have a website and a Twitter handle where you can get information easily, a call center which works 24 hours a day, we have a laboratory that handles testing.
"We used to send samples to Irua (Edo State) which took a lot of time, sometimes 48 hours, sometimes 72 hours, but all of that is in the past now.
“We have two molecular laboratories in Cross River and we can now test here and we have recorded some cases.”
Cross River was also accused of tampering with test results and not following global health criteria on COVID-19 testing.
“We were testing as recommended by the NCDC (Nigeria Center for Disease Control),” Edu says with a smile. “The tests were not for everyone. NCDC says if you see criteria A, B, C and D, that would be a suspected case, so you send the sample for testing. So, that’s exactly what we were doing.
“I guess a lot of people were expecting that we would get the entire population tested. Not even in Lagos, not even in the United States, not even in the UK is the entire population tested.
“So we look for suspected cases, test them and the tests will return negative and we publish same. Of course there will be no need to keep suspected cases or positive cases from anyone.
“If you shut down your borders or isolate a place and everyone in that space is negative, then definitely, you will not see cases of the coronavirus. But if the place is now open for everyone to come in...for instance, in Cross River, we have two flights coming into the state every day from Abuja and Lagos which are COVID-19 epicenters.
“If you have these two flights coming into the state every single day, definitely, they are going to bring in people who are positive for COVID-19.
“In a case where a state has been isolated or had shut-out, it was going to be difficult to get positive COVID-19 cases.”
There have been sundry reports that COVID-19 deaths in Cross River are being ascribed to other ailments, in a bid to keep the mortality rate in the state from the virus low.
Edu rejects this claim.
“We’ve not had cases in Cross River State where people die from COVID-19 and it’s ascribed to something else. We send suspected samples to the lab and treat them as such. There have been some very close calls of suspected cases who have tested negative for COVID-19.
“The ones that have tested positive for COVID-19 are being treated as such. We’ve lost about 3 people so far and we believe we can improve on the care for positive COVID-19 cases," she says.
Edu recently emerged as Chairman of the Commissioners for Health Forum in Nigeria. She says she is grateful to God to be chosen for the task in these uncertain times.
“I am grateful to God for energy and to everyone who has been supporting--from the federal government, to other commissioners for health in Nigeria on the frontlines now, to my dear Governor in Cross River State, his Excellency, Professor Ben Ayade, who has brought his intellect and his passion to bear as it concerns healthcare in the state.
“What is important is to push the agenda of universal health coverage. We are working with all the commissioners for health, the Nigeria Governors Forum, the federal government, ministry of health, national primary healthcare development agency and the NHIS to see how we can achieve universal health coverage and build a resilient health system in Nigeria.
"Because if we have a resilient health system in Nigeria, we would not need to bother so much about pandemics and epidemics. The system will naturally take care of these pandemics and epidemics,” she says.
How does Dr. Edu cope with managing the epidemic in Cross River and getting to work on her new role? Edu says she’s got it all figured out and that her gaze is fixated on the goals of the forum.
“It really is a lot of work. But for me, as the Chairman of the Commissioners for Health Forum, one of the things I’d like to do is to see that we can quickly move on with the basic healthcare provision, insurance so that more people can have access to quality healthcare services.
“We should have a policy dialogue with governors, with the presidency, to put health on the front-burner of politics, of financing in Nigeria, in our various states.
“It’s also very important to look for other sources of financing for health, especially at a time when the IGR (Internally Generated Revenue) of the country, the IGR of the states are dwindling and states are not able to pay salaries, so we can support the public health response during this pandemic period.
“So, it’s a lot of work, but we’ll continue to advocate and push our different mediums to get the right things done for our health sector, not only in Cross River State but all across the country,” she adds.
Nigeria has reported 47, 743 COVID-19 cases, 33, 943 recoveries and 956 deaths as of August 12, 2020.
73 COVID-19 cases have been confirmed in Cross River at the time of writing.
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