By Audrey Lotechukwu–theG&BJournal
SAT, APRIL 11 2020-theG&BJournal- The Director General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control NCDC, Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu confirmed, during Friday’s Presidential Taskforce on COVID-19 briefing that they are seeing clear indications that there are community transmission of the coronavirus in the country, noting that they haven’t quite figured out how about 30% of the identified patients got infected.
‘’But we are working extremely hard-and that is the purpose of the lockdown, to enable us trace the source and do the work,’’ he said, adding ‘’that they have identified and are following up on 91%, as at Thursday April 9 2020, of all the contacts of all the confirmed cases.’’
He said, while clarifying the mix up in the case reported in Bauchi State, that every new confirmed case is followed up by testing every 48 to 72 hours. ‘’That is the only way to know that one has cleared the virus.’’
‘’When the forms and samples come to the laboratory, they are not always complete to say whether this is a new case or repeat test for an existing case, and in the Bauchi case, we corrected it and made it public.’’
Meanwhile, Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire said that the Health Ministry and the NCDC, has continued to increase testing capacity for COVID-19.
According to him, there are 9 laboratories capable of testing for COVID-19- 2 In Abuja: the National Reference Laboratory (NRL), Gaduwa and the Defence Reference Laboratory, Mogadishu. 3 in Lagos: the NCDC Virology Laboratory in LUTH, the Lagos State Biosafety Level-3 Laboratory, and the Nigerian Institute of Medical Research [NIMR].
Others are, Irrua Specialist Teaching Hospital, Edo State; Virology Laboratory of UCH, Oyo State; Federal Teaching Hospital Abakaliki (FETHA), Ebonyi State; and the Africa Centre of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Diseases (ACEGID), Osun State. Additional laboratories in Borno, Kaduna, Kano, Jos and Sokoto States are on the verge of completion.
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