Abuja, Nigeria (CU)_ Following the successful management of COVID-19, the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) and Nigeria Center for Disease Control (NCDC) have promised to increase institutional collaboration in combating infectious diseases. Prof. Chris Bode, the Chief Medical Director of LUTH, welcomed Dr. Ifedayo Adetifa, the Director-General of the NCDC, to the hospital. According to him, as part of the agreement, the NCDC and the World Bank will jointly fund the construction of a 40-bed isolation unit at LUTH.
According to him, since the appointment of Dr. Adetifa as the NCDC’s director general, with his vast knowledge, he has expanded the boundaries of controlling not just the COVID-19 pandemic but also other emerging illnesses including Ebola and Monkeypox. According to Bode, Adetifa, who completed his residency training at LUTH, was returning to a familiar territory, and he expressed optimism that the visit would give a chance to strengthen the partnership between LUTH and NCDC.
Bode remembered the excellent working relationship and partnership with LUTH, particularly since the outbreak of COVID-19. He said, “Many institutions closed up and shut down in the raging days of the pandemic. We cannot blame them; the fear was high as apocalyptic predictions were made for the African landscape. We in LUTH, however, stepped up to the plate and did our own heavy lifting in contribution to the national efforts to contain the disease”.
The CMD reported that the department of community medicine at LUTH was closely associated with contact tracing and contributed to the emergency operation center’s policy making. According to him, the physicians admitted and provided treatment to more than a thousand patients, the majority of whom had multiple comorbidities needing multidisciplinary care.
Bode stated that hospital psychiatrists founded the emotional and psychosocial support group that was eventually adopted by Lagos State in order to provide vital psychological assistance to COVID-19 patients and their families. He stated that LUTH educated other hospitals and caregivers from several states on how to handle and run COVID-19 quarantine centers, while also recognizing the NCDC’s outstanding joint research work on the pandemic.
