CORONAVIRUS: NIGERIA TESTING 2,000 SAMPLES DAILY AS STATES REFUSE TO SUBMIT SAMPLES FOR TEST – NCDC

Nigeria testing 2,000 daily, states not supplying enough samples – NCDC

The Director-General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu, has lamented that states were not submitting enough samples for test.

He said Nigeria  was testing about 2,000 COVID-19 cases daily, but had the capacity to test 10,000  daily.

The DG stated, “We are pushing hard and we are around 2,000 tests per day and sometimes a little bit less. Over the last two days, we have activated new labs in Oyo, Akwa Ibom and Jigawa states.

“In Ondo State, the Lassa fever lab is being converted right now; there is a lot of work going on. However, the collection of samples really happens in the states. Right now, our labs are working between 10 to 20 per cent of capacity; we have the capacity to test a lot more –  about 10,000 samples a day and probably more if we are pushed hard.”

He challenged the states to send in more samples, noting that testings were necessary to determine how well the nation was doing.

The DG stated, “The laboratories are there but the samples are not coming in as sufficiently as we want. We want every state to push harder. The only way we can know that we are on top of this is really by testing, and we are ready to do that.

In a related development, the PTF members  appeared before the House Ad Hoc Committee on COVlD-19 in Abuja on Thursday.

The health minister told the House that   asymptomatic patients were absconding from isolation centres.

He said, “Persons who have tested positive and received their results sometimes don’t report (at the centres) at all; they disappear into the community and then we don’t know what goes on. That is part of the reasons why the infection is cascading and getting out of hand. People don’t present themselves for even advice at all. Some seek alternative treatments which will not work, while others just disappear into the public and do what we hope they shouldn’t be doing.”