COVID-19: FCTA seeks partnership with NAN on awareness campaign
The Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) has expressed willingness to enlighten the public about the risk factors associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dr Mohammed Kawu, Acting Secretary, FCTA Health and Human Services Secretariat (HHSS), made this known when he received the Director of Admin and Human Resource Management of NAN, Alhaji Abdulhadi Khaliel, on a courtesy visit to the secretariat on Tuesday in Abuja.
Kawu said that the secretariat needed the support of the media, in this period of COVID-19 pandemic.
He said that the secretariat would offer to train NAN on the COVID-19 Pandemic “so that they will be able to deliver what we want to the public.”
According to him, many people still don’t believe that COVID-19 is real including some health workers.
“In this pandemic, we need the media more than any other group.
“So, if there are people that we want to work with at this time, they are the media; certainly NAN is one of the priority media organisations to us.
“We really need to work with the media on the risk communication to bridge the gap and increase the awareness.
“As we all know, COVID-19 is a public health disease that is communicable. People get it; and if they do certain things they will not contract it; and it is also fatal.
“A lot of people are dead as a result of the disease besides the morbidity that is associated with it and other economic and social challenges associated with the disease.
“I request the support of NAN especially as you have wide network of reporters across the country to really work on COVID-19 enlightenment.
“Probably, when we visit we’ll come with the Emergency Operation Response Team that have pillars including risk communication so that we discuss with the Managing Director of NAN,” he said.
Earlier, Khaliel, had solicited the support of the secretariat to assist the agency revive its monthly health talks to educate NAN staff members on how best to look after their health.
He also sought the intervention of the secretariat to deploy some health personnel to man the NAN staff Clinic at its headquarters.
“We are here to seek for the secretariat’s intervention. We normally used to have monthly health talks where we invite health professional that specialise on different fields to come and educate us about healthcare.
“Because NAN is an agency where people work round-the-clock, especially the Editorial Department that has no fewer than 500 newsmen.
“Out of which 50 per cent of them are on the desk in the offices not only in Abuja but also in Lagos, Plateau, Bauchi, Rivers, Enugu and Kaduna states.
“We realised that we really need to be talking to ourselves on our health.
“We want to revive the monthly health talks to enable us to ensure regular medical check ups; this is why we decided to approach the secretariat and seek intervention so that we can restore the monthly health talks.
“We are here to also solicit the support of the secretariat to manage our staff clinic,” he said.
