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Ex-health minister urges Nigerian govt to adequately prepare for second wave of COVID-19

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A former Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole, on Tuesday, urged the Federal Government to adequately prepare the nation’s healthcare system against the second wave of COVID-19 pandemic.

Adewole made the call in Lagos while speaking at the Seventh Annual Public Lecture organised by the Foursquare Gospel Church in Nigeria.

Nigeria has 60, 430 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 1,115 deaths as at Monday night, according to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC).

Adewole said: “I am not a prophet of doom, but there will be another pandemic.

“We cannot continue to rely on luck, just like what happened during the Ebola outbreak.

“This present pandemic was predicted some years back and we failed when the World Health Organisation (WHO) came to examine our readiness for any pandemic. We actually scored 42 percent.

“So, funding of the healthcare must be total and the states must also be funded, because most of our states are very poor.”

READ ALSO: 2nd wave of the COVID-19 pandemic will destroy economy, cause many deaths, PTF warns

The ex-minister, who commended the church for coming up with a topic that was relevant to the country, said urged Nigeria to have a resilient healthcare system in place.

“I am an unrepentant advocate of the good healthcare system and proper funding, and what is unique about this topic is the relevance to Nigeria.

“The relationship between health and wealth is complex, interconnected and intimately related.

“That is why policymakers all over the world are under pressure to increase spending on health and that is why we need to have a resilient healthcare system in place.

“What happened in the developed countries shows that they are vulnerable, and if they are vulnerable, that means we are more vulnerable.

“But, as regard COVID-19, God has been kind to us in this country.

“This is because we would not have been able to cope with the severity of what were experienced in some other countries, so there is an unseen hand,” he added.

The former minister, however, called for the reversal of the roles of healthcare institutions in the country.

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