As Lagos centres bed occupancy hits 53%
Professor Akin Osibogun of the Department, Community Health and Primary Care, College of Medicine, the University of Lagos, UNILAG, yesterday, expressed worry that with the manner the COVID-19 pandemic is negatively affecting economic and commercial activities, Lagos State, may lose over $4 billion in revenue to the pandemic by the end 2021.
Meanwhile, the Lagos State Government has disclosed that the bed occupancy level in the state’s public and private COVID-19 care centres has hits 53 per cent.
Osibogun spoke while delivering the keynote address at the Third Research Fair of the Lagos State University, LASU, Ojo in Lagos with the theme: ‘Prevention is still better than a cure: Lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic.’
He said based on the statistics from the Lagos Bureau of Statistics, which put the Gross Domestic Product, GDP, of the state at $18 billion in 2010 and annual growth rate of 10 percent, the state lost $1.62 billion to the Ebola outbreak in 2014, and that the current pandemic is costing it an average of $2 billion annually.
Osibogun said: “From the above, we could see that prevention is far more cheaper and better than seeking a cute. Thousands of variants currently circulate globally. The popular ones are Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Zeta, Delta and Mu. The thing started innocuously and people did not give it serious attention because the fatality rate was insignificant initially.
“But when the virus started interacting with larger population, it started to mutate and different variants started emerging. There could be a fourth wave of it as we think the third wave is abating. The best thing is to observe all the safety protocols, as it is better to breathe through a facemask than to breathe through a ventilator.”
In his speech, the Pro-chancellor/Chairman, Governing Council of LASU, Sir David Sunmoni, who also represented the Chairman of the occasion, the Deputy Governor of Lagos State, Dr Obafemi Hamzat, described the theme of the fair, “Creative and innovative solutions to COVID-19 pandemic,” as very apt.
Sunmoni said: “As the theme of this year’s fair states, researchers will share their latest discoveries on ways of solving the socio-economic, medical and livelihood challenges associated with coronavirus.
“We must give kudos to the Lagos State Government for rising to the occasion and leading the pack in the management of the sudden pandemic.”
Also speaking, the Acting Vice Chancellor, Prof. Oyedamola Oke expressed the willingness of the university to share the outcomes of research in this field for the world to benefit from.
Meanwhile, the Lagos State Government has disclosed that the bed occupancy level in the state’s public and private COVID-19 care centres has hits 53 per cent.
The state Commissioner for Health, Akin Abayomi, who revealed this on his Facebook page on Tuesday, while giving the state’s COVID-19 update for September 5 said in line with the state’s mitigation strategy, it was increasing the numbers of isolation centres available to treat the pandemic during this third wave.
The commissioner listed the eight care centres as: Infectious Disease Hospital 1, Yaba, Lagos University Teaching Hospital Armour, Paelon, Lagos State University Teaching Hospital and Federal Medical Centre, Ebute Metta. Others are: INDO, Grover and Gbagada Isolation Centre.
Abayomi said the care centres had 410 bed capacity, with 193 bed spaces currently unoccupied.
He noted that the state recorded 185 new COVID-19 infections on the reported date, increasing the state’s total COVID-19 infections to 73,995.
Vanguard News Nigeria