The Federal Government has said it does not know the whereabouts of the Chinese doctors and technicians who came into the country to offer assistance to Nigeria in the fight against the Coronavirus on the invitation of the government.
The shocking statement by the Minister of Health, Osagie Ehanire at the daily briefing of the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on the containment of the Covid -19 in Abuja on Thursday came one month after the controversial arrival of the Chinese medical team.
The 15-member Chinese medical team made up of doctors, nurses, and laboratory technicians, arrived at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, on April 8, 2020, with medical equipment worth about $1.5 million, and went in for two week quarantine period according to Covid-19 protocols.
The arrival of the 15 Chinese doctors and technicians, had generated strong criticisms, but the federal Government had dispelled such fears of their presence in the country, stressing that they were in the country to help.
When asked during a recent press briefing about the whereabouts of the Chinese medical team at the daily briefing, Ehanire said: “I want to explain first of all that I think not all of them were doctors and I heard that some of them are technicians, but they are staff of CCECC, the Ministry of health is not their host, so we can’t always explain what happened to them or where they are.
“There seems to be a lot of interests in these doctors but they are the staff of a company and I think they are on the company visa. So I will be very happy if you don’t ask me about where they are because they are not really our guests in that sense. But we have been able to learn some things from them by interacting with them from their experience in their country, we shared ideas about what they did in their country in managing Covid -19.”