The Federal Ministry of Health’s inability to procure equipment and equip laboratories is affecting Nigeria’s preparation for a possible Coronavirus epidemic.
This is despite the release of three hundred and eighty-six million naira by the Federal Government to scale up preparation to tackle the disease.
The Presidency through the Chief of Staff to the President, Abba Kyari, had in October 2018 stripped the ministry of its powers to procure anything and transferred the authority to the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.
A top official at the health ministry said attempts to get the President’s Chief of staff to reverse the situation had not yielded any positive results.
He said the situation had slowed down preparations for prevention of Coronavirus, a disease which has killed more than one thousand eight hundred people and infected over seventy-three thousand people worldwide.
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