The Nigerian government will be introducing the use of rapid diagnostic test kits to scale up the testing for the COVID-19 killer disease from next year.
Director General of the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Chikwe Ihekweazu disclosed this Thursday at the media briefing by the Presidential Taskforce on COVID-19 in Abuja.
Ihekweazu said the country has made significant procurement of the kits which would come in January, noting that testing would be taken out of the laboratory to make it available for the people.
He said: “We can’t carry the burden of testing for everyone in Abuja so we really need all the laboratories around the country to keep working so that not all the samples are sent down. We simply don’t have the capacity to test for the many states that are sending samples to us.
“So if we set up a laboratory in a state or in a Federal Teaching Hospital or Federal Medical Centre, it’s not the commodity that is the problem or the reagent it’s really the healthcare workers.
“I need to remind everyone that a lot of hard work is going on, healthcare workers especially are working extremely very hard. I am really appealing to healthcare workers across the country. It’s been a tough year, we really understand that but we call on you to preserve and work a little bit harder over this period. If you can postpone your leave, you will save many lives”.
Ihekweazu while acknowledging a significant increase in the number of COVID-19 cases across the country, said over 50% of such cases are young people aged 21 – 40 and the authorities are watching the trend very carefully to indicate why transmission is surging and what is driving it.
“We are now at the critical point where every Nigerian has to take responsibility in protecting the country moving forward. Over the past few days we monitored reports of the virus mutation in the United Kingdom, South Africa and a few other countries. But it’s also important to establish some facts. The most important fact to calm everyone nerve is that viruses mutate all the time.
“What we’re now going to do which Redeemer University is doing is selection of other viruses circulating in Nigeria now, from the most recent cases and try to compare what we have now to what we had previously in Nigeria but also what is circulating abroad.
“This is ongoing work that we will be carrying out in the next few weeks to see whether we can explain some of the changes, the increase in transmission that is happening in Nigeria and to know whether it’s related to the virus or unrelated which is most likely to be the case of behaviour amongst individuals across the country.
“There is no need to panic what we all need to do is to reinforce the things that we were doing already and what we have been asking everyone to do. Over the next few days we will just deploy a new team to both the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and Kaduna State to support the response to the escalation of cases across the country”, he added.
Earlier in his remarks, Minister of State for Health, Adeleke Mamora said 10% of COVID-19 positive cases were children and adolescents with more than half of them in the age bracket of 10-18 years and warned against the reopening of schools so as not to expose children to the risk of infection.
Mamora stated that at present, not many states are conducting COVID-19 testing and the Federal Government would ensure that testing continues in all the states until daily targets are reached.
The Minister said Nigeria is recording an increase in the number of passengers coming into the country which has increased to 20,208 last week, noting that only about 60% of passengers due for testing present themselves for test.
According to him, this implied that many who have the virus could spread it in the community without knowing it and called on all those who arrive the country to isolate and present themselves for test on the 7th day.
“In my meeting with the Chief Medical directors and medical directors of the Federal Teaching Hospitals and Medical and Specialist hospitals last week, , I stressed the need for them to work in synergy with the state governments to ensure a coordinated response. The meeting also provided an opportunity for the Medical Directors to exchange notes and share experience.
“Important components on COVID19 response such as laboratory testing, home based care, psychosocial implications of covid19, challenges associated with covid19 case management (Isolation & treatment), were discussed.
“A critical and important outcome of the meeting was the resolve of the Medical Directors to complement the efforts of the state governments in the fight against the pandemic. They also stressed the need for continued routine services in order not to erode the gains we have made in other areas of health.
“This was also underscored in my meeting with the Honourable Commissioners of Health on Tuesday, September 1, 2020. It is in this regard that a country wide deployments of community volunteers (CVs) to intensify contact tracing and active case finding supported by various partners is ongoing.
“This morning, I had the honour of addressing the meeting of the Northern Traditional Leaders Committee on PHC Delivery (NTLC) with the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19. I was happy to note that NPHCDA still enjoys the confidence and strong support of the Committee.
“The pivotal role traditional and religious leaders played in building community trust and acceptance of the oral polio vaccine was the game changer, we therefore hope to leverage upon on this advantage to halt community transmission of COVID-19”, he said.
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