Nigeria struggling to contain covid-19 because it failed to learn from Ebola experience –SGF

The Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Mr Boss Mustapha has suggested that Nigeria is struggling to contain the COVID-19 disease over its failure to learn from the outbreak of Ebola years ago.

Mustapha, who gave the hint at the inauguration of the Board of Experts (BoE) of the Healthcare Sector Research and Development Intervention Scheme (HSRDIS) of the Central Bank of Nigeria, in Abuja, on Monday, said that Nigeria may be faced with another pandemic if we lose the sense of the moment.

According to him, if Nigeria had built on the experiences of Ebola and other epidemics that we have dealt with in the past, Nigeria wouldn’t have started with about two molecular laboratories for the testing of COVID-19.

He said; “If we lose the sense of the moment, we will be confronted with another pandemic and we will find ourselves starting all over again. If we had built on the experiences of Ebola and other epidemics that we have dealt with in the past, probably today we wouldn’t have started with about two molecular laboratories for the testing of COVID-19.

“If you travel the shores of this country, you will find out that we have over 10,000 public primary healthcare centres scattered in wards and villages across the country, ill-equipped, ineffective, and not being put into use but we keep building them.”

“COVID-19 has exposed the weaknesses in our health system, in our governance system, in our security infrastructure, in our inclusiveness and creating social safety nets for our people,” he added.