Health
The focus of Nigeria’s response to the Coronavirus pandemic has shifted to building up testing capacity.
Ability to test more people is crucial to the strategy of containment, Director-General of the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu, said on Tuesday.
While the Federal Government is targeting 1,500 daily tests, Lagos is looking at 200 daily.
Dr. Ihekweazu, said: “As at last week, we were testing about 500 per day. By the end of this week, we will be at 1,000 tests per day. By next week we intend to increase it to 1,500 per day by increasing the number of labs and also increasing the uplift of the Labs that we have.
“The strategy that we are still implementing is one of containment; it means that we are still at the point when we think we have the window of opportunity to identify all the cases and confirm if they have the disease, bring them into care, confirm all their contacts, follow up on each of them, make sure that they do not have the disease, and for those who have the disease bring, them into care.
“This is a very tedious process, and we are following up about 5,000 contacts across the country. This is one of the reason the President asked us what we needed and gave us two weeks to free up the road and enable us to have the space to do this effectively.
“This comes at some pain to many Nigerians in Lagos, Ogun, and Abuja, but it is a necessary recommendation in order that public health workers working particularly in Lagos and Abuja have the opportunity to reach all of these contacts and make sure that they are okay. Those that have any symptoms are brought into care as quickly as possible.
“With our effort focused on those that are infected and their contacts and secondly among everyone else, together we can control the further spread of this outbreak. But we really need everyone to support us, as we hope to use this small window of opportunity to see whether we can bend the curve, get this outbreak under control and get back to day-to-day life”.
Minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire, also speaking at the Presidential Task Force Briefing on COVID-19 in Abuja, added: “More testing sites have been opened in Ibadan and Abakaliki, while existing laboratories are being optimized in their performance. With new additions to the case definition, persons with fever and either cough or difficulty in breathing or shortness of breath in the areas of high COVID-19 prevalence can be tested for the disease.
“More laboratories will join the network of molecular diagnostic laboratories for COVID-19 in Kaduna, Kano, Maiduguri, Port Harcourt and Sokoto.
“Within the next two or three weeks, the over 300 Gene Xpert machines that are used for tuberculosis diagnosis will be converted to be used for COVID-19 detection.
“I want to emphasize that testing is at no cost to anyone in the public and only results from any of the accredited molecular laboratories are valid and recognized. If you think you fit the case of a suspected case, please call NCDC or your state hotline for advice.
“As of today the 31st of March 2020, we have recorded 135 confirmed cases of coronavirus in Nigeria, of which 81 are in Lagos, 25 in the FCT, 8 in Oyo, 4 in Ogun, 3 in Kaduna, 2 in Bauchi, 2 in Edo, 5 in Osun, 2 in Enugu, and one each in Benue, Ekiti and Rivers.
“The majority of persons from overseas and others were traced, as well as their close contacts. The high number of cases in Lagos and Abuja is because of their functions as a gateway for international air travel.
“Additional strategies are being developed to intensify contact tracing to support prompt case detection, isolation, and treatment in order to reduce the spread of this infection.
“The incidence of new cases into Nigeria as a result of the closure of the airport and land borders will reduce the number of implications so that we will be dealing largely with those which have already been brought into the country and are being transmitted from person to person”.
“Training is ongoing for medical personnel to support overall preparedness and treatment. We are preparing about 1,000 beds in Abuja, to be used immediately as isolation centres if the need arises. The capacity to increase bed space is present. Resources for the procurement of required commodities have been provided.
“Preventive measures such as social distancing have proven to be highly effective in many parts of the world and must be adopted as a matter of priority. The same applies to reducing the size of congregations to a minimum.
“We shall be deploying specialists from the Federal Government Viral Disease Research and Treatment Centre in Irrua, to Abuja to assist with training and case management. The fight against COVID-19 is not for the government alone but for all citizens. With a few simple steps, we can all take responsibility and join the collective efforts against this disease.” – The Nation
– Apr. 1, 2020 @ 10:29 GMT |
Tags: 700 daily test capacity COVID-19: FG Lagos plan 1
