The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has called on
State governments to intensify efforts to ramp up sample collection and testing
for coronavirus.
The Director-General of NCDC, Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu, made the
disclosure while speaking with journalists on the backdrop of the country’s
fight against COVID-19 pandemic on Thursday in Abuja.
The DG said that no matter how intensive the States’
preventive measures were, success in controlling the outbreak could not be
assessed without making efforts to carry out enough tests on people.
He said “No matter how intensive preventive measures are,
there’s no way to assess states’ success or failure in managing COVID-19
without conducting more tests to estimate the burden of the disease
”Testing is critical to the national response; we will
continue to scale up capacity.
“Our goal is to limit transmission.
“We also appeal to Nigerians to support the public health
response to COVID-19 by taking responsibility to limit transmission.
“We will continue to scale up our testing capacity. We are
testing every sample we get daily.
“In terms of laboratory capacity, we are ready to do more.”
He further explained that the discharge criteria for any
COVID-19 patient at the moment was a single negative coronavirus test.
According to him, the average duration of hospitalisation
for COVID-19 patients is 11 days.
“Government decided to do this due to limitations in bed
spaces.
“Some people recover faster than others based on certain
factors such as the strengths of their immune system.
“Full reopening of the economy will require the sacrifice of
all Nigerians in taking responsibility and adhering to recommended measures,”
he added.
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