TONY JOHN, Port Harcourt
Rivers State Ministry of Health has set up a 14-man committee for the accreditation of isolation and treatment centres for Coronavirus in the state.
State Commissioner for Health, Professor Princewill Chike who disclosed this in Port Harcourt, said the decision behind setting up the committee followed the rising cases of positive cases in the state.
Professor Chike challenged members of the committee to be diligent and proactive in the discharge of their duties.
The health commissioner said Rivers government was desirous of having more treatment centres to meet its demand, following the trend of the infections in the state.
He said: “And one of the resolutions at that meeting is the formation of an accreditation committee of this state for  COVID-19 isolation and treatment centre.
“In Rivers State, you know we have moved from no case to the place of sporadic cases. We thank God it has not entered community transmission stage, which means the capacity for 30-bed space for the state will soon be overstretched and other centres will definitely have to come up.
Chike said government and private hospitals should be able to work with the committee to make sure they do the right thing as regards COVID-19 case handling.
He said: “And, which means that, we cannot turn away from the fact that, by the time we enter the cluster stage, we are closer to community transmission. By the time we enter that stage, we now start running house-to-house test”, he stated.
The 14-man committee is headed by the health commissioner, Chike. The Chief Medical Directors (CMDs) of the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital (UPTH) and Rivers State University Teaching Hospital (RSUTH) are among the members of the committee.