PDOIS leader has called on Gambians to form a united front against coronavirus, warning the deadly disease is trying to commit genocide against ‘us’.
Mr Sallah said in an address to the nation on Tuesday: “Extraordinary times require extraordinary measures. Thinkers say; the sum of the parts is not equal to the whole. We cannot continue to use fire brigade measures to deal with a pandemic. To wait until there is fire, then we raise alarm to try to fight it. We are told by the WHO that this pandemic starts in China; a nation of over a billion people. But now it has spread all over the world and Gambia is no exception.
“The fact that the illness is found all the way in Numuyel, shows very clearly that; the whole world is a small world. From France to Numuyel, confirms to us that; we are not isolated on the illness and from the world and from the sources of infection.
“We must be prepared. But how are we to be prepared? Those who are entering the country from areas where the illness is prevalent must develop the maturity to be ready to be subjected to observation. That is the way to protect ourselves. That is the way to protect their families.
“It is also important for the State to know that when a person is discovered to have the symptoms, the person must be taken care of by someone. Who? The health workers are the front-line fighters of the pandemic. They must be provided with adequate outfits so that when they handle those with the illness, they would not have any fear. That is the primary task that must be handled with the 500 million that is allocated to deal with the pandemic.
“It is important for us to also understand that, preliminary clinical observations is just one phase. You must have clinical test to be able to fully come to terms whether the person has the illness. We must therefore equip the observatories; the disease control centres, so that they will be able to handle the pandemic. It is also important to sensitize the citizenry so that the sources of infection could be handled. Cleanliness; the washing of the hands is deemed to be one way of preventing the illness. All these actions require resources.
“Therefore, the Gambian people as a whole must be ready to act as one person to be able to handle what is now urgently a crisis of monumental proportion. It is therefore important that each of us is ready to take one’s responsibility so that through concerted actions, we would be able to defeat an enemy that is ready to commit genocide against us.
“This is a battle for our lives. The lives of our children. The lives of our children’s children. So, we must not allow ourselves to be complacent and this is why this message is to you, to me, to everybody that; We must act together to live, to defeat COVID-19. We must act to defeat COVID-19. We must act to defeat COVID-19.”
