Why more Nigerians are dying of COVID-19 – FG Reveals
The Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 on Friday, speaking on behalf of the federal government, through the Minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire, explained that the fear of the novel coronavirus have lead to more deaths of Nigerians.
This was disclosed as a result of the strange deaths that was recorded in two northern states recently. The stance of the government on the deaths is that those death are only attributed to COVID- 19 because it is the reason why they are afraid to visit the hospital.
According to the minister, there have been reductions in the number of people that visits the hospital as well as reduction in the activity of treating routine cases due to the fear of the dreaded virus.
“As a result of that, we do worry that some deaths may have occurred not directly in connection with the coronavirus. If a person couldn’t go to get help in a hospital because of the fear of coronavirus or doctors refusing to attend to such persons,” he added.
The minister also disclosed that the latest statistics from the National Health Management Information System (NHMIS) shows that Out-Patient visit dropped from 4 million to about 2 million, Antenatal visits from 1.3 million to 655 thousand, Skilled Birth attendance from 158,374 to less than 99,000, while immunization services dropped to about half.
“All these have as yet undetermined consequences, which the easing of the lockdown should hopefully address. However, the downside of easing the restrictions needs to be balanced with a collective determination by all of us, not only to comply with protective and prophylactic advisories, but to encourage relatives, friends, neighbours and customers to do same,” he said.
