The National Primary Health Centre in Ikare Akoko, headquarters of Akoko North East local government area of Ondo state has been gutted by fire.
It was gathered that the inferno occurred at the early hours of Sunday and was caused by bush burning by some unknown persons.
Some residents accused the federal government of abandoning the facility over a long period of time, which was supposed to provide health care services for the area.
A civil servant, Mrs Margaret Owati, hinted that residents around the facility made frantic efforts to put the fire under control but the fence of the compound housing the project remained a serious obstacle as no one could scale it.
Mrs Owati stated that men of the fire service in Ikare Akoko complained of lack of functional vehicle when they were contacted as the fire was raging.
A community leader in Ikare Akoko, Chief Teddy Ojuolape, described the fire incident as unfortunate and a colossal loss considering the huge fund committed into the project but which was later abandoned.
In a related development, Ondo state Governor Arakunrin Oluwarotimi Odunayo Akeredolu has commissioned the state Public Health and Molecular Laboratories as well as the Public Health Emergency Operation Centre for better response and containment of COVID- 19.
The commissioning was part of activities lined up for the 2nd term inauguration of the governor and his deputy, Arakunrin Lucky Orimisan Aiyedatiwa, which took place at the Infectious Disease Hospital, Akure.
The governor said the state recorded 2,993 cases and 57 deaths and added that the state rose up to the containment of the pandemic, using multi dimensional approaches based on time-tested principles.
Some of the highlighted steps include; Massive Public Awareness Campaigns, partial and total lock down to reduce the risk of transmission, mass production and distribution of nose Masks, upgrading and support of state surveillance system with additional operational vehicles, establishment of Isolation and Treatment Centres across the three senatorial districts of the state, equipping and putting to functional use the Infectious Disease Hospital where hundreds of patients have been successfully managed and discharged.
Despite all these steps, in his words, low capacity of testing due to unavailability of functional and accredited laboratories to run highly technical tests was a major challenge that faced the state as well as the country at large.
Arakunrin Akeredolu further added that to elicit better response in the containment of the pandemic, his administration resolved to address the situation headlong by establishing laboratories which is now a dream come true.
He said with the public health laboratory which has been accredited by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), the molecular lab and another state of the art molecular lab with greater capacity at UNIMED, which will be ready in the next few weeks, there will be improvement in efficiency in testing for the COVID-19 virus at a greatly reduced turnaround time.
