According to reports, relatives of coronavirus patients who die attack the nurses on duty
ABUJA, March 3 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The Federal Government, on Tuesday, held a reception ceremony after the arrival of COVID-19 vaccine doses in the country.
The ceremony was attended by the Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire; the Director-General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu and Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency, Faisal Shuaib, who organised the ceremony.
Earlier, the CEO of NPHCDA , a parastatal of the Federal Ministry of Health, had said, “There is going to be a small ceremony chaired by the Chairman of the PTF on COVID-19 to receive the vaccine at the VIP Protocol section, General Aviation Terminal of Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja.
“At the end of the ceremonies to mark the arrival of the vaccines. A few vials of the vaccines would be handed over to the NAFDAC team which they will analyze over a period of two days (Wednesday March 3rd and Thursday, March 4th).”
Nigeria received nearly four million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, shipped via the COVAX Facility, a partnership between CEPI, Gavi, UNICEF and WHO.
COVAX shipped 3.94 million doses of the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine, manufactured by the Serum Institute of India, arrived from Mumbai to Abuja around 11.30 am on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, nurses at the Federal Medical Centre in the Southwestern city of Owo, Nigeria stopped treating patients after two nurses were badly beaten early last month.
Relatives of a COVID-19 patient who died attacked the nurses on duty. One nurse had her hair ripped out and suffered a fracture. The second was beaten into a coma. Both are recovering from their injuries.
Following the assaults, the nurses demanded justice and called for the hospital to improve security and other working conditions. Almost two weeks passed before they returned to work.
“Armed security personnel have now been posted to the hospital to run 24-hour service within the hospital,” said Felix Orobode, secretary of the National Association of Nigeria Nurses and Midwives.
The attack in Nigeria was just one of many on health workers globally during the COVID-19 pandemic. A new report by the Geneva-based Insecurity Insight and the University of California, Berkeley’s Human Rights Center identified more than 1,100 threats or acts of violence against health care workers and facilities last year.
Researchers found that about 400 of those attacks were related to COVID-19, many motivated by fear or frustration, underscoring the dangers surrounding health care workers at a time when they are needed most.
Experts say many attacks are rooted in fear or mistrust, as family members react to a relative’s death or a community responds to uncertainty around a disease. The coronavirus has amplified those tensions.
Researchers saw the most attacks last spring and summer as the coronavirus swept across the globe. Yet recent events from Nigeria to the Netherlands, where in January rioters set fire to a coronavirus testing center, prove the threat remains.
Many attacks may have gone undetected because they are never reported to police or in the media. — NNN-AGENCIES
