Cross River now centre for Face Mask Production; get orders – – Moves from Cross River State Governor, Ben Ayade has started yielding fruits as they become the Factory Production centre for healthy face mask in Nigeria.
The Cross River State government recently, said it had received orders from Lagos, Kano and Benue states as well as some cooperate organisations for the supply of face masks produced in its garment factory.
A statement in Calabar, the state capital, the Senior Special Adviser (SSA) on Media and Publicity to Governor Ben Ayade, Mr. Christian Ita, quoted the governor as announcing the orders.
The statement noted that as most states in country battle to contain the ravaging COVID-19, Lagos and Benue states as well as a Kano business mogul, Alhaji Isiaku Rabiu, had placed orders for face masks from Cross River State garment factory.
While Lagos State ordered for one million face masks, Rabiu ordered for 100, 000 pieces of the masks to enable the Kano state government contain the pandemic.
Speaking at the factory in Calabra, Ayade said: “We have Julius Berger, a construction company that has made a massive order. Shoprite also has made a massive order. We have also received an order of one million masks from Lagos State government.”
Meanwhile, the State’s Commissioner for Health and Chairman, COVID-19 task force team, Dr Betta Edu, has appealed to the federal government to set up a vaccine producing factory in the state, noting that Cross River was among the three states in the country without Coronavirus.
She said that the Nigeria Centre for Disease control (NSDC) had sent only 50 test kits which was not enough for the state with over 4.5million population.
According to her, with the release of funds and more test kits, samples will be taken across the state to Irrua in Benin for laboratory testing.
Dr. Edu also called on the federal government to send more security personnel to police the borders against Cameroonian coming into the state.
The commissioner also said that the NCDC staff that are expected in the state to commence collection of samples would be quarantined for 14 days, highlighting that the state was more interested in the prevention of the virus than its management.
“As a state, we have shut down borders and all land entrances to prevent the spread of the virus. It is not compulsory that all states will be affected.”
“The state government is doing all it can to ensure that it remains COVID-19 free. The no mask, no movement policy had helped a lot in achieving the fight against the pandemic,” she said.
The commissioner warned those trespassing through various routes into the state to desist from the act, adding that “the virus does not move, people move with the virus”.
She said that they were interested in testing any suspected case of COVID-19 that meets the NCDC requirements.
She further said that health surveillance staff at the border areas have been advised to focus more on persons with symptoms.
“We don’t need a ventilator at this moment, what we want is test kits to help get more samples for laboratory analysis,” she said.
