The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has reviewed
its testing strategy for COVID-19 regarding the management of confirmed cases.
TheCable can reports that the new strategy requires patients
to be discharged after testing negative once for the disease, unlike it is
usually the case.
Emeka Oguanuo, spokesperson of the NCDC, confirmed the
revision on Wednesday, saying the agency will soon publish the new
guidelines with further details.
Nigeria has so far recorded 4,787 cases of COVID-19 out of
which 959 patients have recovered and have been discharged from isolation
centres across the states.
But before getting discharged, NCDC initially required that
patients must test negative at least twice for their health status to be
confirmed.
It is not immediately clear the reason for the revision, but
the agency has repeatedly said its response to the pandemic is guided by the World
Health Organisation’s (WHO) recommendations.
On April 30, the NCDC said it was struggling for bed spaces
to admit COVID-19 patients in Lagos.
Speaking at the briefing of the presidential task force on
COVID-19, Chikwe Ihekweazu, director-general of the NCDC, said efforts are
being made to change strategy in order not to allow inadequate bed spaces to
affect the fight against the coronavirus.
He also said no state in the country has enough bed space to
admit COVID-19 cases.
Various countries and organisations, however, adopt
different strategies in their responses. For instance, the European Centre for
Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) said a single negative test for COVID-19
(especially if from an upper respiratory tract specimen) “does not exclude
SARS-CoV-2 infection“.
The WHO recently said there is no evidence that those that
have recovered are immune to the disease. Indeed, some of those patients have
tested positive a second time after recovery.
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