Government of Cross River State has cautioned the Nigeria Centre for Diseases Control against importing COVID-19 positive cases into the state.
The commissioners for health, Dr. Betta Edu, and his counterpart in charge of Information, Mr.Asu Okang disclosed this in Calabar during a joint press briefing held on Friday. The state which expressed shock over the incident added that it was disheartening that NCDC wants to import fresh cases into the state without the knowledge of the government.
“We received a leaked memo written to the Navy Reference Hospital informing them of the federal government’s intention to train experts to use the Gene-Xpert Machine that has been lying fallow since the commissioning of the hospital by the president.
“We wonder the hurry to train people in Calabar where there is no COVID-19 case and without the knowledge of the state government.
“They will have positive and negative test samples to use in training the people and we are surprised they choose the Reference Hospital for this sinister exercise”, he said.
He said if the government wants to help the state, they should ask us where we need help rather than sending positive samples here in the name of training experts.
Chairman of the state COVID19 Response Team and commissioner for health, Betta Edu said the state has been faring well and the overall health indices of the state have improved despite the pandemic.
She said the state is not afraid of the pandemic but has put all necessary in place including training 400 experts to handle the virus.
She said the state does not want numbers it does not know to be ascribed to her, stressing that what is going on is saddening.
