The Cross River State Government has appealed for the financial support from the Federal Government to enable it sustain the fight against the deadly novel Coronavirus.
The Commissioner for Health, Dr. Betta Edu made this known while addressing newsmen in Calabar, stating that Cross River is among the few states in the country that has not recorded any case, adding that maintaining the COVID-19 free status by the state government comes at a higher price.
She stated that the lockdown order imposed by the government has further challenged the financial capacity of the state, which she noted has led to the cessation of internal revenue generation.
Dr. Edu lamented that Cross River, so far has not received any form of support from the Federal Government or corporate organizations, such as financial institutions, multinational corporations adding that the Nigeria Center for Disease Control (NCDC) should set up testing facility in the state to reduce the cost of transporting samples of suspected cases to Irua, Edo State.
She expressed concern that Cross River is now in a red zone as all the neighbouring states and Cameroon have confirmed cases of Coronavirus. She said the best thing anyone could do at this time was to support the state government to prevent the outbreak of the disease.
“As at 2:49pm Sunday 19 April, 2020, Cross River State is still COVID-19 free. We sent samples to the lab and those samples came back negative. I am stressing on this because we heard from some quarters that Cross River State is still negative because we have not sent samples”
“Again, I want to tell us really clearly that there are laid down criteria and rules by the NCDC and the Federal Ministry of Health that direct on who to take samples from. So, it’s not anybody who is passing on the street that sneezes once and you run there to take samples. We have brought our criteria to a point of even identifying community transmission”
“In as much as we want to test as many people as possible, we must avoid waste so that we can have enough to continue to sustain us till all of this is over”
“For Cross River State, the COVID-19 palliative is not food. Like the governor rightly said: ‘there is no amount of food you will give to the people that they will not finish in two days.’ No matter what you give out, it will never be enough to feed the whole of Cross River State for two weeks. So for him, taking care of lives without taking care of livelihood would only result to a cataclysmic society, and I stand with that. So he has decided to provide jobs for young persons to engage them”
“They can get themselves engage in this job using their face masks. Remember the policy of no masks no movement still remains sacrosanct in Cross River State” Dr Edu said.
The Commissioner also cautioned against the propagation of unverified information by media practitioners in the state, advising that information on how to curb the spread of COVID-19 should rather be promoted
