Geoffrey Onyeama, minister of foreign affairs, has narrated
his experience as a COVID-19 patient at an isolation facility.
The minister, who announced his recovery from COVID-19 on
Wednesday, urged Nigerians to treat the disease like other respiratory
infections, as part of efforts to address stigmatisation.
He had announced on July 19 that he tested positive for
COVID-19.
Speaking at the presidential task force (PTF) on COVID-19
briefing in Abuja on Thursday, Onyeama said the three weeks he spent at the
isolation centre made him proud to be a Nigerian because of the professionalism
at the facility.
“Don’t feel it’s anything shameful to go to be tested or to
have this disease or whatever. Just treat it like any other; it could be
malaria, it could be flu. Just don’t feel that somehow it’s a stigma and you’re
carrying something that would not be accepted and acceptable,” he said.
“The PTF is like a military high command before a battle,
and it occurred to me that none of the military high command had been battle
tested or had any taste of the war. So, maybe it was a good thing that at least
now one of the team can speak from experience and not just from fear.
“It has been said that COVID-19 is very real, I used to have
what I call the triple protection — my mask, my shield — it still didn’t stop
that. So we just have to keep at it, you never know where it could come from.
“I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the medical team
where I was staying — where I was isolated. They’re really good and it made me
feel very proud to be a Nigerian. Honestly, for those three weeks, I could not
speak more highly of the dedication and the professionalism. The environment in
which one was confined for three weeks was really the most agreeable and most
pleasant, and I was saying that I could come back there for a short weekend
vacation because it really was that good.”
He called on the ministry of health to recommend medication
for treating symptoms of coronavirus, in order to address the issue of lack of
accessibility to testing.
“I was discussing with the minister of health earlier today
that maybe in the cases where people cannot be tested soon enough, we can
recommend a cocktail of some medication because sometimes it’s a respiratory
disease; it starts off with the upper respiratory area and what we don’t want
is for it to move down to the lower respiratory area and it really helps to be
on the medication early to stop that,” he added.
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