COVID-19: Donate your buildings as isolation centres, minister begs Nigerians

The Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire, on Thursday, appealed to Nigerians to donate their buildings as isolation centres.

Ehanire made the appeal at the press briefing of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 in Abuja.

He said as the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control aimed to test two million people in the next three months more buildings would be needed as isolation centres.

The minister stated, “I have appealed to citizens to make their property available temporarily for this purpose. I am sure that after that, there are many property owners who will come up and donate to state governments for a period of time to be used for this function.

“We are not out of space now but we are making the appeal ahead of time so that we have these facilities ready.”

Ehanire said that he was aware that the hazard allowance of health workers in the frontline of COVID-19 fight was being negotiated, but said that it did not include that of environmental health personnel.

Ehanire stated also that test capacity of the 15 laboratories in Nigeria had reached 2500. He, therefore, called on Nigerians to take advantage of the facilities.