ABUJA, Nigeria (AFP) – Nigerian doctors in state-run hospitals began an indefinite strike on Monday over pay, overcrowded facilities and a lack of personal protective equipment, union leaders said.

The industrial action by the National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD), which represents some 40 percent of doctors, is the latest in a string of stoppages by medics to hit Africa’s most populous nation as it struggles to curb the spread of the coronavirus.

“We have kicked off the strike today,” NARD president Aliyu Sokomba told AFP, adding that unlike previous strikes, medics treating virus cases would join the action.

“There will be no exemptions,” he said.

There are over 40,000 resident doctors in Nigeria’s state-run hospitals.

Doctors have long complained of a lack of beds and drugs in hospitals and inadequate protective kits.

Sokomba said other demands include life insurance coverage, a pay rise and payment of unsettled wages.

“We have arrears of 2014, 2015, 2016, salary shortfalls that were supposed to have been paid over six years ago, still pending,” he said.

“These are the issues we have and they appear not to have been addressed up till this day,” he said.

“It is an indefinite strike,” Sokomba said, adding that it would be called off only when the union’s demands were met.

Strikes by medics have been common in Nigeria where the health sector is underfunded.

The authorities fear any reduction in capacity could severely hamper its ability to tackle the pandemic as the number of cases continues to rise.

In June, NARD staged a week-long strike over welfare and inadequate protective kits but doctors treating virus cases remained on the job.

Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation of 200 million inhabitants, has recorded over 55,000 COVID-19 cases and 1,057 deaths.