Special Message By His Excellency, @GovBello Of Kogi State To The People Of Kogi State During The Reception For A Team From The @NCDCgov

#PROTOCOLS
Fellow Kogites and our visitors from the @NCDCgov

@ed_onoja @SEmmanuelNG @ShehuSani @GovWike @Fmohnigeria @ProfJames5 @ChiefAsuku

I give heartfelt gratitude to the Almighty God that we are alive and well in Kogi State in spite of the dire dangers we have had to live with practically from the beginning of this year.

It is no longer news that the CoviD-19 pandemic has been on a rampage through the nations of the world since the first case was reported in Wuhan, Hubei Province of China in November 2019.

We thank His Excellency, President @MBuhari GCFR, His Excellency, Vice President @ProfOsinbajo, GCON, SGF, Boss Mustapha, the @Fmohnigeria, @DrEOEhanire, and Dr. Olorunimbe Mamora, the Minister of State for Health for their leadership to the nation at this trying time.

We also thank Dr. Sani Aliyu and the Presidential Task Force on #COVID19 as well as the @NCDCgov led by Dr. @Chikwe_I whose direct duty it has been to honestly interpret and ensure compliance with the global and national advisories for containment of this pandemic

Nigeria's index case was reported on 27th February 2020. Based on information from NCDC, as of midnight yesterday being Wednesday the 6th of May, 2020 we understand that the country has had 3145 cases of Covid-19, of which 103 have died sadly while 534 others recovered

Though severely perplexed at the scale of sudden death and destruction unleashed by the novel coronavirus outbreak on every continent, we have somehow been spared its presence in Kogi State up till this moment.

We have recorded no case of #Covid_19 yet although we have had numerous suspected cases which turned out to be false and plenty of rumored cases which were found to be nonexistent when our medical team followed up to investigate

All credit for our zero #Covid_19 status in Kogi State will go to the Almighty God Who has helped us by means and for reasons which He alone can explain. We have continued to make decisions and take actions which we consider best to keep our people healthy, safe, and secure.

Even as we rejoice in our good fortune in not recording even a single case of this deadly disease so far, we are keenly aware of the plight of our brother states in the federation which have had to contend with the loss and suffering visited upon them by Covid-19.

To be sure, the absence of cases does not mean that Kogi State has remained untouched by the scourge. We too have known the loss of loved ones from this plague in addition to the socio-economic costs which continue to mount by the day. We have lost 3 valued gentlemen,

all of them accomplished senior citizens who resided outside the state.Among them is Nigeria's first CoviD-19 fatality, Alhaji Suleiman Achimugu, a former Managing Director of the @PPMC. The deaths and losses which we have experienced have brought home to us the deadly intent ..

and capability of the SARS-COV2 virus. This has in turn compelled us to treat it with extreme caution as a state. I will now give you an account of our stewardship by running you through a list of actions and precautions which we have taken in our fight against CoviD-19.

BRIEF OVERVIEW OF #COVID19 RESPONSE STRATEGY IN KOGI STATE
The team from the @NCDCgov will acknowledge that traditionally Kogi State has one of the highest incidences of Lassa Fever in the country during each outbreak and has therefore

developed considerable experience and expertise in combating and defeating infectious disease outbreaks.

In fact, if the Director-General, NCDC were to be here today, he will recall inaugurating a Public Health Emergency Operations Centre (PHEOC) here in Kogi State

on Thursday 29th November 2018 to facilitate rapid response to emergency public health situations like the #COVID19Pandemic. Due to our high Lassa Fever incidence every other year, we also equipped a full-fledged infectious diseases laboratory early in the first term of

this administration to combat it. With the exception of similar facilities belonging to the federal government, Kogi State is probably the only state in the country to possess a facility of that grade before the advent of Covid-19.

You will probably also recall that in 2017 Kogi State and Kwara State alone of all the states in the federation had an outbreak of yellow fever which we successfully managed with collaboration from the Federal Ministry of Health and the NCDC.

Overall, it is instructive that in spite of our so-called locational disadvantages which make us to have some of the highest infectious disease numbers each year, Lassa Fever especially, Kogi State has also had a 100% recovery rate since 2017.

Similarly, our Incidence Committee for infectious diseases comprising the full complement of experts and specializations has been on ground years before this CoviD-19 pandemic. Thus Kogi State's epidemic management structures were already up and running by the time the @NCDCgov

was giving guidelines to states on how to set them up.

In summary, I am trying to assure us that our peculiar challenges as a frequent hotspot of unforeseen disease outbreaks has over the years imposed on us unusual heights of public health vigilance.

This helped us to quickly put our best foot forward long before the Covid-19 was declared a pandemic.

You will notice that different from the practice in most places, we set up a Kogi State COVID-19 and Lassa Fever Squadron Committee to coordinate our response to the Covid-19...

pandemic while ensuring we do not lose sight of existing epidemics like Lassa Fever which has already killed more people this year in Nigeria than the coronavirus. We were the first state to officially release a web application which the general public can deploy to self-assess

for CoviD-19 risk. That app has proved to be popular and effective in tackling fear among the populace in the face of an unknown killer disease.

We have had over 200,000 engagements with that app, over 14,000 completed self-assessments revealing scores of cases which required