No fewer than Nine Gombe State Officials have tested positive to Novel Coronavirus.
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| Information Commissioner, Alhassan Ibrahim |
Speaking on behalf of the Committee, the Commissioner for Information Alhassan Ibrahim said their result is part of 609 samples collected recently following the death of Shuaibu Danlami, a former Government House Director and ex Assistant Secretary of the Task force in the state.
Ibrahim stated this while answering questions on the directive of the governor Inuwa Yahaya, that top government functionaries should submit to testing, at the daily briefing on activities of the Committee in mitigating spread of Covid-19.
He said, “It is really unfortunate and with a heavy heart we on the taskforce in the government circle, we are having our own share of the pandemic as well. As we all know we lost one of our members (Assistant Secretary) and a director in Government House and as a result of that we conducted massive tests of all government functionaries.
“Out of 21 commissioners, it is unfortunate we are having 3 positive cases, of the special advisers we have 1 positive case and of the members of the state House of Assembly we have 5 positive cases. This is so far the update within government circle.
While encouraging Journalists to undertake the coronavirus test to be certain, Ibrahim added that permanent secretaries, and heads of agencies are currently undergoing screening.
“We will make sure that 100 percent of the state work force get tested. Members of the press are not exempted, we want to advice you to submit yourselves for testing because we have being working with you in tandem. “
Meanwhile the chairman Professor Idris Mohammed explained that the state is suffering from community spread as recent cases lack subsequent travel history adding that the Committee is ever committed to tackle the pandemic.
“There are increasing numbers of positive cases in Gombe state, if you take the last 5 days you will be forgiven if you say there are alarming number of cases in Gombe. The latest figures show 63 positive cases in a matter of four days, sequel to the massive test we have undertaken, we have established there is Community spread in Gombe state, this means there must be a correspondingly massive increase in the activities of the taskforce, which has become imperative, we need to involve the community, as community participation is crucial in any pandemic,” Mohammed said.