…On the trail of over 4000 contact cases
MON, MARCH 30 2020-theG&BJournal- The Director General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) Dr Chikwe Ihekwuazu warned Monday on Channels TV, that the country should expect increase in coronavirus (COVID-19) cases over the coming days ‘’because there is no vaccine for cure of the deadly disease,’’ while appealing for total adherence to the guidelines put in place by health authorities.
He spoke to the efforts in place to protect healthcare workers in the front line of the fight against the disease.
‘’We are going over and above to provide the healthcare workers the personal protection equipment that they need to protect themselves because we need them to survive, we need the frontline to be strong, confident and competent as they manage the patients on behalf of all of us.’’
The NCDC D-G confirmed that well over 2000 individuals have been tested in the country so far and have increased the number of labs in the network as well as activating new laboratories. He said that the Abakaliki laboratory will be activated today to bring the number of laboratories in the network to 7.
‘’Everyday, we are improving the turnaround time. We have moved to 24hrs shift system in Lagos and Abuja, so we are maximizing the opportunities of the systems that we have and at the same time rolling out new labs,’’ he said. ‘’We are very focused on increasing the capacity of testing around the corner,’’ he added.
According to him, the NCDC is working with test centres that have the capacity to do molecular testing and test centres that have a bio-safety environment for testing highly pathogenic infections. He said not too many centres in the country today have both together in the same place and it is not easy to set up.
‘’So we are working with laboratories that already have such set ups and then activating them with the primers and reagents to make the diagnosis for COVID-19.’’
The Federal Medical Centre (The Alex Ekwueme Teaching Hospital) in Abakaliki will be activated today. Kaduna, Kano, Portharcourt, Sokoto Jos and Maiduguiri will follow in that sequence. These are the labs that already have the two requirements in place.
He said the Federal Government have a medium to long term plan to have a centre in every state in Nigeria but for now there is a sample transportation system in place that can take samples from any state capital in Nigeria to one of the labs.
Meanwhile, on the 29th of March 2020, Fourteen (14) new confirmed cases of COVID-19 were recorded in Nigeria. Till date, One hundred and eleven (111) cases have been confirmed, three cases have been discharged and one death from COVID-19 recorded in Nigeria, according to the NCDC.
The NCDC said, of the Fourteen (14) new cases reported on the 29th of March, Five (5) are in FCT and Nine (9) are in Lagos. All new cases have mild to moderate symptoms and are currently receiving care.
NCDC said a multi-sectoral national emergency operations centre (EOC), has been activated at level 3, and continues to coordinate the national response activities.
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