Be proactive in opposition to illness outbreaks, medical doctors urge FG

Lara Adejoro

Docs beneath the Nationwide Affiliation of Authorities Basic Medical and Dental Practitioners have urged the Federal Authorities to be proactive in opposition to illness outbreaks within the nation.

Talking in the course of the affiliation’s 2022 Nationwide Government Council assembly themed ‘The function of normal practitioners in nation constructing,’ the affiliation’s President, Dr Dokun Noel, mentioned Nigeria is all the time reactive to epidemics and has but to study from earlier epidemics.

Noel, nevertheless, tasked the federal government to utilise preventive measures as a substitute of healing measures in tackling illness outbreaks.

He mentioned, “The issue with Nigeria’s system is that we’ve got all the time been within the reactive state in terms of epidemics. It was when Ebola occurred that we began considering of what to do, and when COVID-19 began was once we began considering of what to do. If we’ve got adopted the pattern of monkeypox, you’ll know that we’re nonetheless lagging behind.

“ We have now not learnt from our previous errors, we put an excessive amount of emphasis on different issues however we needs to be wanting on the preventive side and be sure that we’ve got protocols on how you can stop ailments.”

In line with him, the financial influence of illness outbreaks within the nation is all the time enormous.

“The associated fee is very large as a result of there’s a barrier positioned on our folks from travelling after they mentioned illness is a Nigeria illness. If they are saying one thing is popping out of Nigeria that’s dangerous, then it’s not restricted to the products we ship out however people are affected, and it’ll have an effect on everybody. We don’t know the consequences now, however it’s going to worsen if we don’t do something.

“We have to get it proper. We have to develop our home-grown methods on how you can cope with ailments.”

 Talking on the influence of monkeypox on a fragile economic system, Dr. Stephanie Oni-Ogunbor mentioned there’s a want for elevated consciousness of monkeypox.

“In July 2022, the World Well being Organisation declared monkeypox a public well being emergency of worldwide concern and it means that we’ll seemingly be tolling the road of COVID-19. It’s excessive time everyone was conscious of what the signs are and how you can look after the illness,” she mentioned.

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