The senate has asked the federal government to consider
banning non-Nigerian travellers from countries with high risk of coronavirus
(COVID-19).
The upper legislative chamber made the request after
adopting a point of order raised at Tuesday’s plenary session by Ibrahim
Oloriegbe, its health committee chairman.
Nigeria recorded its third case of the coronavirus infection
on Tuesday — all linked to Italy and UK, which are among high-risk countries.
Before the third case was announced, the federal government had
said it was not considering a travel ban on countries with active spread of the
virus.
Oloriegbe, however, said in addition to the ban, other
prevention and control practices, Nigeria should as well restrict travels to
worst-hit countries to curb the spread of the virus.
“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,” he said.
“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 “government has to step up the testing capacity,
and provide support for state governments”.
Senate President Ahmad Lawan agreed with his submission, and
added that emphasis should be placed on the isolation and testing centres.
“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 need for 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.”
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