Human rights lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Femi Falana, on Sunday, called on the Federal Government to check passengers from China of their COVID-19 status.
Falana made this known in a statement made available to our correspondent on Sunday in Abuja.
In the statement, the learned silk advised the government not to wait till the country’s healthcare system was overwhelmed before taking necessary actions.
He said, “It is public knowledge that there has been a COVID-19 surge in China in the last few weeks. The Chinese authorities have been reporting about 5,000 cases a day. Some analysts have said that the crisis has been underreported by the Chinese Government.
“The development has compelled many countries to impose restrictions on passengers arriving from China. As usual, the FG has not adopted any measure to prevent the spread of the dangerous disease through travellers arriving in Nigeria from China.
“In view of the rickety health care delivery system in the country the FG should, as a matter of urgency, make it mandatory for passengers arriving Nigeria from China to produce a negative COVID-19 test taken not more than two days prior to departure.
“A stitch in time saves nine, as they say. The government should not wait until the nation’s healthcare is overwhelmed by the pandemic before taking the necessary scientific steps to prevent another upsurge of coronavirus infection”.
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