By Adedayo Akinwale
The federal government has evacuated stranded staff of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) from Republic of Congo.
The Nigeria Ambassador to the Republic of the Congo, Mrs. Deborah Iliya, in a statement issued yesterday, said the NCDC staff members were drafted to Brazzaville to undergo a special capacity building course with the World Health Organisation (WHO).
She stressed that the medical team had been stranded following the closure of air and land borders by Congo Brazzaville to contain the spread of coronavirus. Iliya stressed that the medical team were on a training programme to expand their frontiers of knowledge as regards the management of coronavirus popularly known as for their prompt deployment to the country.
She said: “This message of support is at the instance of the prompt action taken by the presidency and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in deploying a special flight of the Nigerian Air Force to convey back to the country a team of public health officials of the NCDC, who had been drafted to Brazzaville, the Republic of Congo, to undergo a special capacity building course with WHO, a training to expand their knowledge as regards the management of coronavirus and for their prompt deployment.
“This act has in no small measure further strengthened the bilateral harmony that exists between the two countries. Furthermore, the President of the Republic of Congo, Denis Sassou Nguesso, has put in stringent measures aimed at ending the spread of the virus as it has actively embarked on sensitisation campaigns, while the public has also been mobilised for strict observation and compliance to all clinical advisory and lock down directives.”
The ambassador, therefore, commended the government and the people of Congo for the act of solidarity and standing on good relations by the temporal opening of its
