A case traced from France to Numuyel should send the early warning signal that resisting preventive observation procedures conducted for arriving passengers in The Gambia is the quickest means of enabling COVID-19 to hit rural Gambia where health teams are totally unprepared to take charge of those found to be affected.
The first step that the government has to take is to provide the most vulnerable frontline fighters against the illness with protective gears in order for them to feel secure to interact with those who have shown symptoms of the disease, take them to observatories and conduct tests to finalise their screening of whether they have the illness or not. Without such secure frontline fighters the battle will be lost before it even starts.
The five hundred million dalasis that is allocated should be accompanied by a programme of prioritised activities aimed at addressing the pandemic. High on the list should be the provision of protective gears to the frontline fighters against the pandemic. It is also important that observatories are properly equipped and staffed to be able to address the concerns of those who are kept for observation. Those concerned should not be subjected to any harsh environment that may erode their health. They should be protected to ensure that they are only kept if the signs of the disease are acknowledged and if there is a healthy environment to fight the illness. No one would wish a family member to die. Hence each must become a protector of all family members by self-disclosure if one is experiencing high fever, coughing and extreme weakness of body.
