OVER 20 Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) in Nigeria have called on the Federal Government to put in more effort in arresting the spread of coronavirus in the country following the record of a third case on Tuesday.

Nigeria recorded its third case of COVID-19 after a 30-year old woman flew into the country from the United Kingdom on Friday, March 13.

The CSOs in a statement released on Tuesday and obtained by The ICIR expressed concerns over the exposure of the country to travellers from different countries and demanded that steps should be taken to restrict travellers from high-risk countries.

While advocating that stringent measures be taken to protect the citizens in the country, the group advised that people coming into the country should be quarantined and land borders should be better manned to avoid a possible outbreak which the countries health care system isn’t prepared for.

Countries like Uganda, Chad and South Africa have already shut their borders to foreigners and banned travellers from gaining easy entrance into their countries in an attempt to prevent importation of the deadly virus.

Outlining steps that the government must take to curtail to prevent further spread of the virus, the CSOs  advised that funds be released to Nigerian Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) to enable a scale up in testing as well as handling the virus.

The CSOs comprise Policy and Legislative Advocacy Centre, Centre for Liberty, Stakeholders Democracy Network (SDN), Silverchip Fox, TechHer, Butterfly Effect Empowerment Initiative, YIAGA Africa, Concerned Nigerians.

Others include Free Nigeria Movement, Adopt A Goal Initiative, Dinidari Foundation, Rule of Law Development Foundation, Education as a Vaccine, Stand to End Rape Initiative (STER), Centre for Democracy Development, Girl Child Africa, Tap Nitiative, Centre for Impact Advocacy (CiA), Raising New Voices Initiative, Global Rights, Connected Development (CODE), also advised that “Governments at all levels (Federal, state and local) should consider immediate measures to limit public gatherings and promote safe social contacts amongst citizens.”

Meanwhile, less than 24 hours after the Federal Government announced the third confirmed case of novel coronavirus in the country, a friend of the patient called out the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) over what he described as its poor handling of the case.

Ayobami with the Twitter handle @dondekojo tweeted that the confirmed case would have been avoided if the NCDC had been proactive in testing the 30-year-old patient.