By Binta Jaiteh
Knowledge Attitudes and Practices [KAP] study report on coronavirus in The Gambia has been launched by the National population Commission Secretariat.
The study was noted to be first of its kind – and it was collaboratively done by The Gambia Bureau of Statistics (GBoS), University of The Gambia (UTG) and A&T Consultancy Limited.
Speaking at the launching of the report, the Vice President of the Gambia DR Isatou Touray said: “since the time covid-19 was declared a pandemic, the number of cases continue to grow globally disrupting all services and posing significant threats to the health systems, thus, taking a huge toll on lives of people.”
She said that coronavirus pandemic is considered the worst public health emergency of the 21st century and the Gambia like other countries in Africa was not spared.
‘’To curb the spread of covid-19, Government of the Gambia under the leadership of His Excellency President Adama Barrow, applied various precautionary measures including the closure of the airspace as well as land borders,” she said.
She added that her office “is indeed pleased to be associated with such an inquiry and is committed to pushing for the implementation of recommendation of the study.”
Honorable Fatou Kinteh, Minister of Gender, Children and Social Welfare said coronavirus outbreak is affecting societies around the world in an unprecedented manner.
She noted that experiences from previous pandemics showed that women and girls are active for change, witnessing the effects of the crisis in different ways.
She said health vulnerabilities are especially related to diseases exposure in the short term, therefore is a larger share of women in the health sector.
Honorable Minister of Health, Dr Momodou Lamin Samateh said coronavirus has been unprecedented, since the discovery of the virus found in China and went on across the world. He added that “It is indeed a challenging and such virus has never occurred before in our lives.”
According to him, the world doesn’t know how to tackle with the issue as they are still battling in regards of what to do with Covid-19 and even the advance countries have been over whelmed and “our poor country faces a lot of challenges.”
However, he said despite The Gambia being a small country, the country still put in effort to overcome Covid-19 by engaging partners with the support and guidance the government provides is remarkable.
