Shippers’ Council, NCDC sensitize maritime industry on safety against spread of COVID-19

The Nigerian Shippers’ Council in collaborating with the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has began a sensitization exercise of the maritime community on how to stay safe and contain the spread of COVID-19.

 In a statement, the Council disclosed it would begin to distribute hundreds of face masks and hand sanitizers to the leaders of seven trucking associations.

 It said that equipping the truckers for prevention against COVID-19 spread was particularly significant
because truckers, being essential workers, are some of the few people who are allowed to move across state lines as they deliver essential cargoes all around the country.

The Council recall that through the Federal Ministry of Transportation, it had made an intervention for that
category of persons to be allowed free movement as they convey goods from the ports to the lengths and breaths of Nigeria and indeed beyond the borders of the country.

It also disclosed plans to begin a tour of the terminals and shipping companies on a COVID-19 sensitization campaign, with assurance that the Port Health Services department of the Federal Ministry of Health would be present at these sensitization events.

The NCDC has assigned one if its doctors to deliver a talk on COVID-19 at the various locations where
freight forwarders and staff of these organisations would be present, the Council said.

The Council said it would also give out face masks and sanitizers to all present at all the terminals and
shipping companies where the exercise would hold.