The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) says COVID-19 patients can now be discharged between 10 to 14 days after a positive test or onset of symptoms. This is according to NCDC’s newly released case management guidelines.
Chikwe Ihekweazu, director-general, NCDC, who made this known during the daily briefing of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 in Abuja, Thursday, said the 3rd version of the guidelines was released following new science emerging about the duration of infectivity of individual patients.
The DG said the World Health Organisation (WHO) had also released new guidelines after the study found that the virus is viable for about 10 days.
This, he said, prompted a review of the national guidelines in line with local setting.
Ihekweazu explained that symptomatic patients would now be discharged at least 10 days after symptoms onset and at least three days without symptoms, while asymptomatic patients can be discharged 14 days after the first PCR positive test.
“We no longer have to wait for a negative test to discharge. We are confident that you can go home and you are no longer infective or putting family or friends at risk. If your symptoms last for longer, we will wait while managing,” Ihekweazu said.
He noted that physicians are hesitant about the new guidelines, but he assured them that the new guideline is effective and would have impact.
The DG further informed that the centre has also removed the use of anti-virals such as chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine from its treatment guidelines. He said the anti-virals will now be used only on trials setting and not casually, because its safety is uncertain.
He said the treatment protocol remains to manage symptoms, manage pre-existing conditions, supplemental oxygen therapy to different extents, treatment of bacterial infections and ensuring that patients are well nourished and well hydrated.
The government also gave reasons for not using the antibody-based test kits, saying that only four of the kits evaluated by the Medical Laboratory Science Council of Nigeria failed the validation tests.
Osagie Ehanire, minister of health, speaking on the backdrop of criticisms over the non-use of the test kits, said no antigen test kit has yet been evaluated.
“This means that results obtained from these tests are not tenable for diagnostics, being deficient in sensitivity and specificity and are likely to give false results and mislead people,” Ehanire said.
“NCDC-certified laboratories in Nigeria use WHO-recognised PCR testing methods which give reliable result. Though expensive, this option is right and we have 30 laboratories deployed, with the aim of establishing at least one laboratory in every state,” he said.
The minister said the Federal Government is also partnering the West Africa Health Organisation (WAHO) on a cost-sharing plan for a common air transport plane to convey COVID-19 supplies of WAHO and Nigeria from Beijing to Abuja.
On the arrangements with WAHO, the minister noted that the health committee, among others being Finance and Transport, was set up to facilitate the work of the ECOWAS COVID-19 response.
He said a virtual meeting of ECOWAS Heads of State and Governments in April compared notes, discussed matters of regional cooperation and collaboration around the COVID-19 strategy and response, border-related challenges on movement of people and goods when borders are reopened.
“Just as we continue to engage states, we shall continue to engage community, religious and traditional leaders for sustained messaging to citizens, on the importance of adhering to health advisories, to combat community spread,” he said.
The minister further explained that the daily epidemic curve of confirmed cases has shown a consistently rising trajectory with corresponding increase in fatalities, adding that the increase in cases is due to improving testing capacity and of activities of other response pillars, such as surveillance, community mobilisation, coordination, contact tracing, improved awareness, the demographics and other factors.
“Nigeria currently has a total of 11,166 confirmed COVID-19 cases in 35 states and FCT, of which 3,329 have been treated successfully and discharged, while we have sadly recorded 315 deaths,” Ehanire said.
The PTF also warned Nigerians against self-medication following the re-inclusion of hydroxychloroquine in the ongoing solidarity trial on effective treatments for COVID-19, which was earlier temporarily halted by the WHO on May 25.
