Aisha Buhari donates towards the fight against COVID-19

The First Lady of Nigeria, Hajiya Aisha Muhammadu Buhari has lent a helping hand towards the fight against the coronavirus pandemic in the country.

Through her Future Assured initiative, Aisha has been able to renovate and equip a building at the Mararraba Gurku Medical Centre, Nasarawa state. 

This renovated and equipped building is going to serve as an isolation centre for the management of people who are infected with the coronavirus disease.

In a Facebook post, the First Lady made it known that it is part of her efforts and commitment to complement government efforts in the response to the COVID 19 pandemic.

“In addition to this, I also donated some Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and some essential dr*ugs to Nasarawa state government, for the benefit of the good people of the state.

The items included hand sanitizers, surgical face mask, N95 respirator masks, multivitamins, antimalarials, analgesics, intravenous fluids, and oral antibiotics.

Food items were also donated as palliatives to the health care workers,” she stated.

Last month, Hajiya Aisha Buhari donated food item, which includes bags of rice, to religious groups at the peak of the total lockdown across the country.

The donation was made on Monday and Tuesday, May 4 and 5 through the First Lady's representative, Dr Hajo Sani, who is also the senior special assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on women affairs.

Around the same period, Hajiya Aisha Buhari praised her predecessor, Mrs Patience Jonathan, for her contributions towards the fight against the novel coronavirus.

The first lady disclosed in a statement on Thursday, April 23 that the former first lady willingly released her building to be used as a Covid-19 isolation centre temporarily.

She also listed donated items as hospital beds, bedsheets, PPEs and medications.

Meanwhile, as Nigeria prepares for life after the COVID-19 pandemic, the federal government has assured citizens that it will soon roll out additional stimulus packages for Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) across the country.

This was disclosed by the special assistant to the president on MSME in the office of the vice president, Tola Johnson.

COVID-19 : Osun state Governor commissions 160-bed isolation centre

The Governor of Osun State, Gboyega Oyetola commissioned an isolation centre with 160 beds in Osogbo as part of efforts to curb the coronavirus pandemic in the state today.

Mr Oyetola said that a group, the Coalition Against COVID-19 (Ca-COVID), donated equipment, consumables and 100 beds. He said the state government added 60 beds for the facility, now called Mercyland.

He said it would serve as an addition to the government’s other initiatives in containing the spread of the virus. Mr Oyetola said his government had renovated and equipped three other isolation centres which include, 130-bed facility in Ejigbo; 12-bed capacity in Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, a 20-bed isolation centre and 8-bed Intensive Care Unit at State Specialist Hospital, Asubiaro, Osogbo, making 342-isolation beds and eight ICU-bed facility in the state.

“We are adopting a holistic approach to winning the pandemic, including working with the National Centre for Disease Control and the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19.

We have dedicated personnel doing contact tracing, testing of contacts, isolation and care of patients for quality treatment. We have extensive publicity and sensitisation programmes in place to educate and update our citizens regularly on how to stop COVID-19 in its tracks.

There has also been provision of palliative for citizens, introduction of lockdown and curfew as appropriate to ensure effective containment of the virus without hurting our economy and livelihoods.”

He also appreciated the coalition for its support and urged residents to abide by the laid down health rules to curb the pandemic.