Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq of Kwara State has called on relevant stakeholders in the health sector to strengthen mechanisms towards mitigating public health issues around the world.
He made the appeal in Ilorin while speaking at the 2023 Faculty Day lecture, organised by the Faculty of Public Health and Community Medicine, National Postgraduate Medical College of Nigeria.
The faculty lecture was themed, “Leading Outbreak Response in a Nigerian Tertiary Hospital: the Excitement, the Frustrations and the Lessons Learned’.
The governor commended the faculty and health specialists for their great efforts in saving humanity at every turn.
He observed that the United Kingdom is having a resurgence of COVID-19, and urged them not to let down their guards because it is a public health issue.
“We truly appreciate the work you are doing in Kwara, we were able to manage the COVID-19 pandemic. Africa was able to manage COVID-19 than many other continents, and this is largely due to your commitment,” he said.
The governor observed that the theme of the lecture brings to life the memory of the joint effort made to rid communities of COVID-19.
He said, “What we achieved, both as a nation and specifically here, was an outstanding enabler, which gave us a practical opportunity to evaluate the health system we inherited.”
AbdulRazaq urged medical doctors to work harmoniously with all other members of the health team for better results.
He revealed that his administration concentrated on addressing infrastructure decay by fixing well over 57 healthcare facilities, among others.
“We also made multi-pronged malaria elimination interventions accessible to all Kwarans, among others.
“We are hopeful that addressing attrition challenges in human resources, in this way, will tremendously reverse the JAPA trend and enable us to retain more good hands and make our state attractive for more specialists to join us in providing quality healthcare to our people,” he added.
While delivering his lecture, a Professor of Public Health, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State, Adedeji Onayade, identified factors that mitigate executing effective response in disease outbreaks including limited resources and strained facilities.
Others, he said, are communication barriers, the rapid spread of false or misinformation, rumour and myth-mongering through social media.
“Amidst these excitements and frustrations, valuable lessons are learned. Each outbreak response provided an opportunity for reflection, improvement and building resilience for future challenges.
“For example, based on the experience with Ebola, active members of the COVID-19 committee were volunteers who committed to the response,” he added.
Prof. Onayade also described disease outbreaks as a security issue and called on policymakers to maximise the large pool of expertise available in the departments of Community Health/Medicine within the tertiary institutions during outbreaks of diseases.
He described outbreaks as a sudden rise in the number of cases of diseases in a community or geographical area, which affects several countries lasting for days, weeks or years.
“Since all emerging epidemic communicable diseases are zoonotic, the need for collaboration with the veterinary departments for surveillance information sharing cannot be overemphasized, more so, with the rapid expansion of small, medium and large scale animal farming,” he said.
The Faculty Chairman, Dr. Chikaike Ogbonna, said the governor had blazed the trail in his prompt attention to health issues, including the recent approval of 100 per cent CONMESS and skipping allowance for medical doctors and consultants in the state.
He commended AbdulRazaq for honouring the faculty with his attendance, charging him to continue along that path.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that highlights of the programme include presentations of awards to the governor and other outstanding public health physicians.
(NAN)
The post Kwara Gov. tasks physicians on strengthening public health emergency response appeared first on Healthwise.