COVID-19: Yobe Govt. advises residents to access healthcare services

From Sa’adatu MAINA, Damaturu

The Yobe Government has advised residents to access healthcare services to know their health status amidst coronavirus pandemic.

Dr Muhammed Gana, the State Commissioner for Health and Committee Vice Chairman of COVID-19 Prevention and Control gave the advice on Saturday in Gashua, Bade local government area.

The Commissioner said the investigation conducted by COVID-19 Rapid Response Team revealed that 57 per cent of those died recently in the state had underlined chronic illness.

“There is need to access healthcare services. Because one of the findings that we had during our investigation was that many people have underlined illnesses like hypertension diabetes and so on.

“So it is going to be very imperative that people should access healthcare services so that they know their health status.”, said.

He also advised residents to adopt safeguard measures against the heat wave. Saying people, especially old age should restrict activities to early mornings and late evenings when the temperature is favourable.

In his remarks, the Emir of Bade Alhaji Abubakar Sulaiman had associated massive deaths in his emirate with natural course rather than COVID-19.

He stated that the people of the emirate witnessed more lost of lives in 2019 due to heat wave compared to the current death record.

“We were in the same kind of situation last year, in a day we recorded 21 deaths. This year we recorded 36 deaths in 6 days.”, he said.

It was reported that there was an increase of number of deaths in some parts of Yobe including Bade local government, which the state government said 90 per cent were not COVID-19 related.