Yusuf Bello| The Senate on Tuesday urged the federal government to consider banning travellers from countries with high risk of coronavirus.
The Senate made the request following a point of order raised by Ibrahim Oloriegbe, its health committee chairman at plenary.
According to Oloriegbe, in addition to the ban, and other prevention and control practices, Nigeria should as well restrict travels to worst-hit countries.
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.”
”Nigeria currently has only five centres where testing can be done, and “government has to step up the testing capacity, and provide support for state governments”.
While agreeing with Oloriegbe’s submission, Senate President Ahmad Lawan urged that emphasis should be placed on the isolation and testing centres.
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.”
“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.”
Nigeria recorded its third case of the coronavirus infection on Tuesday, a 30-year-old woman who recently returned from the UK.
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