The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) says 1,179
COVID-19 patients out of Nigeria’s 2,170 cases have no epidemiologic link.
This implies a rise in community transmission.
An epidemiological link to a case is defined as one that
“has either been exposed to a confirmed case, or has had the same exposure as a
confirmed case (e.g. eaten the same food, stayed in the same hotel, etc)”.
The Health Protection Surveillance Centre in Ireland also
gives six criteria for determining epidemiologic link during the incubation
period of COVID-19 as “human to human transmission, animal to human
transmission, exposure to a common source, exposure to contaminated food or
drinking water, environmental exposure and laboratory exposure”.
A breakdown of the other cases in the NCDC report showed
that 210 patients had travel history, 593 were contacts of confirmed patients,
while 188 persons were tagged “incomplete”.
Concerns have been raised by the NCDC and the Lagos state
ministry of health in recent times over increase in community transmission.
At a press briefing on April 6, Akin Abayomi, commissioner
for health in Lagos, said the state recorded an increase in local transmission;
at the time, Lagos had recorded 120 confirmed COVID-19 cases.
“At the end of week 4, 82% of the patients imported the
disease from abroad while 18% had no travel history. By the end of week 5, 45%
of the patients have no travel history. This shows that the importation is
decreasing and local transmission is increasing,” he had said.
Lagos currently has the highest figure with 1,006 confirmed
COVID-19 cases.
Weeks after Abayomi’s briefing, at the April 22 presidential
task force on COVID-19 briefing, Osagie Ehanire, minister of health, also
confirmed that community transmission was increasing across states.
“The role of primary healthcare is very important in this
exercise in the sense that now we are in the community transmission phase. Now
that it has gone to community level, it is really down at the grassroots and
the role of the primary healthcare comes into play,” he said.
As of May 1, 2020, 16,588 samples have been tested, with 829
samples tested in the past 24 hours.
Kogi and Cross River are yet to record any case of COVID-19.
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