Coronavirus: Senate Asks FG To Restrict Travel From High Risk Countries

As countries across the globe are making efforts to curb the spread of the rapidly growing coronavirus, the Nigerian Senate has asked that the Federal Government follows suit, restricting nationals of countries with high risk of the virus.

Just on Tuesday, Nigeria recorded its third case of infection, with all infections imported from European countries. The lates was a woman who had just returned from the United Kingdom.

When asked if the Federal Government was considering shutting its borders to nationals of countries with high risk of the virus, the Minister of State for Health, Olorunimbe Mamora, had said that medical authorities were keeping an eye out and that the Nigerian Government was not looking to close its borders just yet.

The Chairman of the Health Committee in the Senate, Ibrahim Oloriegbe, said that Nigeria should, in an effort to check the spread, prohibit travels from and to countries with high infection rates.

He said, “If it is possible, people should not travel to countries with high risk of the cases especially in Europe where many countries are affected, unless such trips are very important.

“Government should also consider disallowing non-Nigerians from countries of high risk from entering the country. Government should also increase capacity about checking airports.”

Backing up this motion was the President of the Senate, Ahmed Lawan who emphasized the need for more isolation centers in the country.

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He said, “We are very lucky and fortunate, but we shouldn’t push our luck too far. We should be very observant of all those regulations the technical experts give us.

“There is need for federal government to do a little more, especially in the area of testing centres. The entire north and south-east have no testing centres and it shouldn’t be so.

“Also, for the isolation centres the state governments are building, the ministry of health should come out with a standard which will be replicated in all the states.

“So we need to through our committees, ensure we work with the ministry of health to work with the states to ensure the isolation centres are standardised.”