SAT, MAY 30 2020-theG&BJournal-In an effort to increase COVID-19 testing capacity in Nigeria, States including Kano have set up mobile testing sites in communities.
The strategy is part of efforts of the Federal Ministry of Health and the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) to scale up test capacity for COVID-19 to every state across the country using real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) which is said to be the most reliable.
According to the NCDC, the current national case management protocol is for all cases to be managed by a team of clinicians in an isolation centre to ensure optimal care and to prevent further spread of the disease.
As at 29th May 2020, the NCDC has tested 60,825 samples from suspected coronavirus patients nationwide. 2099 samples were tested Thursday to yield the current nationwide total of infected patients. 387 new cases were confirmed to take the nation’s total 9302. Two additional deaths were recorded to bring the total fatalities to 261 in 35 states and the Federal Capital Territory.
The 387 new cases are reported from 14 states- Lagos(254), FCT(29), Jigawa(24), Edo(22), Oyo(15), Rivers(14),Kaduna(11), Borno(6), Kano(3), Plateau(2), Yobe(2), Gombe(2), Bauchi(2), Ondo(1). A total of 2697 cases have been discharged nationwide. The number of people of interest has also risen to 10023. 210 of them have travel history while 6942 have unknown source of infection.
NCDC Data shows that twenty Local Government Areas (LGAs) account for 60% of the confirmed COVID-19 cases in Nigeria, mostly in metropolitan areas. Eight states and FCT account for these 20 LGAs in the country, namely Lagos, Kano, Katsina, Jigawa, Bauchi, Borno, Edo, Ogun and the FCT.
The NCDC team is currently working to address scepticism and stigma around COVID-19 in these areas to encourage compliance to testing.
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