By Elizabeth Chukwuma
In spite of the fact that the Federal government has designated the Premier port, Apapa, Lagos state and the Calabar port, in Cross river state as well as the eight International airports in the country, including the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, as major transmission routes of the Asian country of China, born Coronavirus, Kingsley Uzoka, led Management of the United Bank for Africa , UBA, African global bank , has adopted the anti-coronavirus measures initiated by the government over the last four months to contain the spread of the deadly disease in Nigeria.
Recall that the government had established testing Capacity in four Laboratories and surveillance to follow up with travellers from China, Italy, Iran, Japan, Hongkong, Spain and South Korea, particular, which had been affected by the sickness in their thousands , within 14 days , of arriving the country.
The Deposit Bank, according to sources had procured the temperature testing equipment which the government had said would be needed to identify the carrier of the disease in a business premises. The Value News learnt that the temperature of Customers and visitors to the bank, particular, the Headquarters branch at Marina , Lagos, are checked by the security officials who were armed by the equipment. The bank officials were said to have been trained on how to apply the equipment in checking the temperature of Customers and visitors to the Bank. The Magazine learnt that there is a certain temperature that someone could attain after being checked and the person would be quarantined in the bank.
The Magazine cited some Customers of the Bank being stopped and asked to position themselves to check their temperature. Those whose temperature were found to fall within the range that could be considered to be normal were asked to go. For the two hours the Magazine watched what was happening at the entrance to the Headquarters’ marina branch banking hall, the security personnel were serious in conducting their tests as no person was granted concession to go into the Banking premises without going through the testing process.
Notwithstanding that the UBA the fact Management had invested on anti-coronavirus temperature testing equipment, they were s said to have procured sanitizers which had been distributed to all the branches of the bank nationwide. The Bank Management may have decided to join the government to contain the spread of the deadly disease which had recorded some index cases in Senegal, Egypt, Morocco, Algeria and Nigeria to avoid a spread of it in the country.
The over 250 persons who were said to have had contact with the first index case in the country, an Italia, who has a business dealing with an Ogun state based Company, during this flight to the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, MMIA, Ikeja, Lagos, were said to have been quarantined in Ogun and Lagos states to avoid the spread of the sickness until confirmed negative after going through the temperature and other tests.
Prior to UBA involvement in the fight against the spread of the deadly sickness in the country, only the Hajia Hadiza Bala Usman led Nigerian Ports Authority , NPA, had championed the cause of stopping the spread of the sickness in the country through the seaports. The agency had provided personnel serving in various Committees that had been set up by the government over the last four months to monitor the spread of the sickness in the country.
A top official of the Federal ministry of Health who spoke to the Magazine disclosed that if other Organisations , particular, the deposit banks could take a cue from UBA and NPA, to invest on the anti-coronavirus equipment and sanitizers as well donate generously to the government in the fight against the virus, they would be assisting the country.
Donald Trump, the United States president fears that now that the deadly disease is spreading in alarming rate in Asia and Europe, it may spread to the North American country if nothing urgent is done to address the problem.
This may have informed why he is freeing up $50 billion in Federal funds for the battles against the coronavirus pandemic . He was said to have promised to vastly ramp up testing capacity of the sickness in the united States within one hour. ‘’we will turn corner on this virus’’, he had said.
Last Friday, a worried Trump has provided $1.3 million to support the in funding two laboratories to develop coronavirus tests equipment that turn in results within one hour. Work on the two laboratories: DiaSorin Molecular of California and QIAGEN of Maryland are said to be progressing fast.
The US Pesident who is not ready to sit-by and watch people die in their thousands in different parts of the world because of the coronavirus was said to have concluded plans to release an additional to release an additional $1.4 million for Laboratory tests equipment for the deadly disease in the next one week and $5million within one month.
The country’s Food and Drug Administration was said to have given approval to the SWISS Pharmaceutical giant , Rche , to expedite action in developing a new and aster coronavirus test. Given that the developing countries do not have the resource combat the sickness, the International Monetary Fund, IMF, and the World Bank ,is to provide $12 billion to boost countries Coronavirus response as it happened, meaning that the African countries, which have recorded index cases would benefit from the Fund.
