Plateau state Governor Simon Lalong on Wednesday , flagged off the distribution of Palliatives donated by the private sector  to the most vulnerable persons in the  state to reduce the hardship caused by the outbreak of the dreaded Covid-19  virus .

Speaking at the occasion in Jos ,Lalong said that the  State has increased its  testing capacity as it now  has three testing centres at the National Veterinary Research Institute  NVRI Vom, Plateau Specialists Hospital and the University of Jos Teaching Hospital.

" These have enabled us to test about 500 persons per day and so far, we have tested over 15 thousand."

The Governor also reminded the  people that the state is   currently witnessing community transmission of the disease and as such, citizens  should apply extra caution by strictly adhering to COVID-19 guidelines..

"People should also submit themselves to testing because that is the only way we can have the requisite information to deal with the disease. We should also be ready to get used to the new lifestyle under COVID."

Lalong expressed gratitude  to members of the Nigerian Private Sector who have demonstrated compassion in alleviating the suffering of the poorest of the poor in the society by raising funds to acquire these items.
"As we are all aware, the Corona virus pandemic came with devastating impact that has ultimately affected the health and economy of Government and citizens. The most affected are vulnerable persons whose means of livelihood is virtually erased."
" As a government, we took several steps towards ensuring that we did not only contain the pandemic, but also mitigate its impact on the lives of the people. This was even more crucial because of the series of lockdowns and restrictions we imposed in the course of managing the disease.

He said that realizing the hardship faced by the most vulnerable members of the society, the state government set up the Plateau State Palliative Committee headed by the Deputy Governor, his Excellency, Prof. Sonni Tyoden.

"The Committee successfully distributed palliatives purchased by the State Government to the various categories of vulnerable persons which included orphanages, the elderly, widows and displaced persons among others."

He said that the gesture by CACOVID will definitely extend the frontiers of what the state  have been doing by reaching other vulnerable persons who did not benefit from the previous efforts.

He said that CACOVID has set out clear criteria for identifying qualifying households that will benefit from the Food Relief Programme. Our role as a State is to facilitate this process based on defined guidelines.

"The items being received today will be distributed by the State Implementation Committee which comprises of CACOVID Monitoring and Evaluation Team, Representatives of the Media, Representatives of Security Agencies and Representatives of the State Palliative Committee.

This implementation Committee will further organize for the representatives of all the Local Government Areas to collect the allocations for each LGA and oversee the redistribution to eligible beneficiaries in each Ward based on set guidelines and schedules.

CACOVID has set a target of two weeks for these items to be distributed to identifiable households under strict documentation. I have been reliably informed that each household will get some quantity of rice, pasta, noodles, sugar, salt, garri/semo/or maize.