Nigeria is strengthening disease surveillance to help stop the spread of COVID-19. In Lagos, World Health Organization (WHO) is supporting the health authorities by mobilizing surveillance teams to help investigate & trace patients with symptoms in health facilities.

Dr Wesley Salifu, 27, a surveillance assistant in Lagos, takes a canoe to a riverine community in Ibeju Lekki area of Lagos. He is one of the 16 World Health Organization (WHO) consultants helping to find COVID-19 cases in health facilities in the state.

Surveillance assistant, Bola Adelakun, 26, visits a maternal health facility in Ibeju Lekki, Lagos. On arrival, hospital record officers present their registers so she can go through them.

As a frontline health worker who visits several hospitals daily, Bola says her work is interesting but admits it is risky.

“I’m most scared when I get to a hospital ward & it is really crowded because I know there is a likelihood of infection in that kind of setting.”