The Governor of Oyo State, Seyi Makinde, has said the state will explore local solutions, towards the prevention and cure of COVID-19.
Makinde stated this during a press briefing after a meeting of the State’s COVID-19 Task Force on Thursday.
The Governor said he was convinced that Nigeria can look at things that work locally.
He said: “We are looking at local solutions. I know that a lot of people have been calling me all sorts of names on social media but, from my experience, one thing that I know you have to do to conquer the virus is that you have to boost your immunity. We do have local solutions and, of course, we have to defer to experts’ opinions as part of the home-grown solution to deal with COVID-19.
“People may ask if we have been funding the research institutes very well. They may even ask if we are in a position to bring any kind of solution to the world. My answer is yes. Even chewing something like bitter-kola. When the Western world is having the flu season, they have flu shots. But here, we have things like catarrh. When we are crossing over from the dry season to the rainy season, people almost always fall sick. Cold, cough, catarrh, we have ways of dealing with all of these locally.
“So, except a solution comes from the Western or Eastern world, I won’t say that we cannot deal with it. I believe we have the capacity. We have the intellect to look at things that work locally and we will keep encouraging that. We have the capacity to also validate some of the results that we are going to be getting.
“They did clinical trials for chloroquine and some other medications but these are things we take normally here. So, we are not ruling out a local solution to this pandemic.”
