The relief items included laboratory diagnostic kits, Personal Protective Equipment, intensive care equipment as well as miscellaneous medical accessories.
The Nigerian Air Force is set to airlift about 4,000kg relief materials to 14 West African countries as donated by the Economic Community of West African States.
SaharaReporters learnt that the relief items included laboratory diagnostic kits, Personal Protective Equipment, intensive care equipment as well as miscellaneous medical accessories.
The materials would be airlifted by a seven-man NAF C-130 aircraft crew.
Apart from ECOWAS, the items came through donations from partners such as Team Europe, the German Government, United Nations Development Programme and the Deutsche Gesellschaft Fur Internationale Zusammenarbeit.
“The relief materials which will be distributed to the 14-member nations of ECOWAS, Nigeria inclusive, are in response to the spread of the second wave of COVID-19,” the NAF said in a release on Wednesday.
Flagging off the airlift of the relief materials at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, on Tuesday, the leader of the ECOWAS Delegation and Vice President of ECOWAS Commission, Finda Koroma, stated that the need for essential medical supplies became necessary to enable ECOWAS countries cope with increasing cases of infection.
“She stated that this is necessary as the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic continues to increase, especially in West Africa.
“She noted that the first ECOWAS support to member states of critically needed medical supplies was in August 2020 and the efforts went a long way in ameliorating the shortages experienced in some vital materials required to curb the spread of the pandemic,” the NAF release added.
In March 2020, the air force had also airlifted medical materials donated by the Jack Ma Foundation consisting of 107 boxes of medical supplies and equipment weighing over 1,360kg.
Similarly, in April 2020, the NAF airlifted medical equipment and supplies donated by the Turkish Government from Lagos to Abuja. The medical items weighing about 4,000kg, were airlifted by a NAF C-130 Hercules aircraft to the Central Storage Facility in Abuja on behalf of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19.