At least 20 Nigerian doctors have died of Covid-19 last week since the second wave of the disease erupted in the West African country, the chairman of the Nigeria Medical Association (NMA), FCT, chapter Enema Amodu, has said.
Mr Amodu said this while speaking at a press briefing on Friday. He said the deceased health workers include consultants, professors and some resident doctors.
”For those of us in the health sector, we have lost quite a number of colleagues. Across the country, we have lost not less than 20 doctors in the last one week,” Mr Amodu said.
Many doctors do not have access to Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) before attending to patients, according to the report.
More than 1,000 health workers have reportedly tested positive for COVID-19.
As of June 2, 812 health workers in Nigeria tested positive for COVID-19, according to Health Minister Osagie Ehanire, according to the website.
As of July, more than 10,000 health workers in 40 African countries were infected, Premium Times said, citing the World Health Organization (WHO).
Since the virus was first reported in March, Nigerian authorities have confirmed 1,242 deaths, 81,963 infections and 69,651 recoveries in 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, according to figures released by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC).
As the country has been witnessing a second wave of the pandemic, a spike in infections has been seen in Africa’s most populous nation, leaving six killed and 1,041 infected Thursday, according to the NCDC.
The virus was first reported in Wuhan, China, last December before spreading globally. More than 79.7 million people have been infected with 1.74 million deaths, according to US-based Johns Hopkins University.
Neurosurgeon Dies from Covid-19 Complications in Calabar
A consultant neurosurgeon at the University of Calabar Teaching Hospital (UCTH), Mathias Nnadi, was said to have died of Covid-19 complications in Calabar, the capital city of Cross River state.
The late doctor had was mistaken to have initially died of acute exacerbation of asthma while stuck in traffic in the state capital.
His wife was said to have called for an ambulance from the teaching hospital, which also got stuck in the traffic at Odukpani area of Calabar and could not evacuate Nnadi on time.
But a postmortem test carried out on the deceased was reported to have shown that he tested positive for COVID-19.
