…No State is COVID-19 free, NCDC boss says
By Audrey Lotechukwu
TUE, JUN 23 2020-theG&BJournal- ‘’Right now, no state in Nigeria is COVID-19 free that is why we have to keep testing people,’’ Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu, the Director General, Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), declared Monday during the daily Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 briefing in Abuja.
Cross River State is the only state in the country that is yet to officially acknowledge a case of the coronavirus and the Governor of the State, Ben Ayade apparently does not believe in testing as part of the process to contain the spread of the disease.
‘’We can only start talking about any state or community being disease free when we have an effective tool to fight that disease, and that will come when we have a vaccine. Until then we have to keep pushing on with the preventive measures and we have to develop our laboratory’s capacity to test. Its either you start testing now or you start later, eventually we will all test,’’ Dr Ihekweazu said.
Chikwe also gave insight to testing turnaround time which he says have gone down in many places. He said in places like Abuja the result can be obtained within 24 hours or within a day and half.
Our short term strategy is to ensure access to the test kits that is available, and ‘’that is why GeneXpert is being rolled out very aggressively across the country.
He suggested that the country will be able to have access to testing in every State in Nigeria by next week. There are about seven States that don’t have a testing facility yet ‘’but by next week we will say that the whole country is covered,’’ Chikwe assured.
Meanwhile, coronavirus cases continue to pile up around the country with more States seeing higher numbers of infection.
Only 12 States now have fewer than 100 cases of infected persons. The states include Zamfara-76, Kebbi-67, Anambra-68, Niger-66, Akwa Ibom-65, Osun-60, Yobe-56, Adamawa-45, Benue-44, Ekiti 35, Taraba-18 and Kogi-3. But only three of the States- Kogi, Taraba and Benue have no fatality report yet.
The Monday data from the NCDC shows another massive haul of 675 new cases reported from 21 states. The addition takes the country’s total of COVID-19 infection up to 20,919 with 525 pronounced dead. The number of active COVID-19 cases in Nigeria is now 13,285, meaning more pressure on hospital beds. The good news is that 7,109 patients have so far been discharged. In all, 115,760 samples have been tested nationwide.
288 of the new cases were reported from the epicentre Lagos while States like Oyo-76, Rivers-56, Delta-31, Ebonyi-30, Gombe-28, Ondo-20, Kaduna-20 and Kwara-20 have all seen spikes in their daily numbers as well.
The other states reporting new cases are Ogun-17, FCT-16, Edo-13, Abia-10, Nasarawa-9, Imo-9, Bayelsa-8, Borno-8, Katsina-8, Sokoto-3, Bauchi-3 and Plateau-2.
Elsewhere, 54 African Union Member States have reported a total 307,479 COVID-19 cases with 8,149 deaths according to the Africa CDC. The regional case topping countries are South Africa-(cases 97,302, deaths 1,930; recoveries 51,608.) In North Africa, Egypt (cases 55,233; Deaths 2,193 and recoveries 14,736), In East Africa, Djibouti (cases 4,599; deaths 48; recoveries 3,859). In Central Africa, Cameroon (cases 11,892; deaths 303; recoveries 7,710) and in West Africa Nigeria (cases 20,919; deaths 525, recoveries 7,109)
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