By Audrey Lotechukwu
MON, MAY 04 2020-theG&BJournal- Nigeria is now recording significant increase in cases, more than any African country and with more frontline medics succumbing to the coronavirus. The number of community infection continues its rapid rise too, spreading in wild-burn.
The Lagos chapter of the National Association of Nigerian Nurses say over 300 nurses are now exposed to COVID-19. 16 have tested positive and currently in isolation as at Saturday. 4 have so far been discharged.
Lagos, Kano and Federal Capital Territory (FCT) suffered the lion share of new cases.
The good news is that the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) have now tested up to 17, 566 samples in total, about 3,000 more since Monday last week, but still a far cry from what is required to determine the extent of coronavirus damage to Nigeria’s health.
The World Health Organization (WHO) say that mass testing strategies need to be put in place to enable economic recovery, but lack of equipment and training remains an issue.
‘’Nigeria’s testing challenge is enormous,’’ says Dr Sylvan Ebigwei, regular contributor to theG&BJournal -consultant and Dental surgeon, and to achieve a reasonable level of testing which is key to fighting this disease, the private sector must step in. On the alternative, 45% of the funds so far invested into the COVID-19 fund should be deployed to setting up mobile testing centres across the country.’’
NCDC announced 2,558 confirmed cases as at 5.39 am Monday, including more actives cases-totalling 2,071. Only 400 patients have so far been discharged but death, as always is slowly creeping up-87 as at Monday morning.
It is not clear how many coronavirus tests were performed over the weekend, but our sources say ‘’the numbers are very insignificant-probably because it’s a weekend and many of the front line workers would want to take a break’’
Meanwhile, WHO Africa region say that the region now accounts for 54% of cases and 35% of deaths in Africa.
Five countries have surpassed 1,000 confirmed cases, with cases in Guinea and Nigeria increasing most rapidly. Countries continue to face a risk of increased community transmission. Eight countries are reporting community transmissions to date.
‘’If this trend continues, the number of cases could double each week,’’ according to WHO.
The UN framework for the immediate socioeconomic response to COVID-19 was released this week.
The key national challenges identified by the UN country teams and humanitarian coordination teams include: Weak national health systems and coordination for some countries; insufficient financial resources to fund national response plans; weak capacity and insufficient number of health personnel; insufficient personal protection equipment (PPE) for health personnel; insufficient ventilators for increasing severe cases; and low screening and testing capacity.
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