Coronavirus: NCDC names challenges impending Covid-19 battle
- NCDC says the challenge faced in the fight against coronavirus is 'how active our public health workforce is in identifying suspected cases'
- Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu, NCDC chief director, added that collecting samples, and sending them into the lab for testing' is another challenge
- The NCDC chief, however, disclosed that Nigeria now has the capacity to test 1,500 per day
Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu, director-general of Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), says wide-range testing and effective tracking of the Covid-19 cases by the health personnel are some of the major banes impending the fight against coronavirus.
Speaking during the daily conference on the presidential task force on Covid-19 on Tuesday, April 14, the NCDC chief director said the federal government has successfully solved the problem of laboratory testing capacity.
Ihekweazu, however, said the disease control centre has not been able to find a solution to "how active our public health workforce is in identifying suspected cases and collecting samples."
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"The challenge right now is not the laboratory testing capacity. It is how active our public health workforce is in identifying suspected cases, collecting samples, and sending them into the lab for testing.
“So the limiting factor is not the lab, the limiting factor is getting the right samples into the labs and that’s our collective responsibility for the next two weeks,” the NCDC said.
Ihekweazu also added that Nigeria now has the capacity to test 1,500 per day, though President Muhammadu Buhari wants the testing capacity to increase to 2,000 daily.
"From today, we have to push even harder. Our target following Mr president’s speech is to get to 2,000 samples a day in Lagos, 1,000 in Abuja and 1,000 for the rest of the country.
“If we don’t create more light into what we are doing, we won’t really understand what we are,” Ihekweazu added.
Nigeria, as at the time of filing this report, has 373 coronavirus cases, with 30 cases reported in the late hours of Tuesday, April 14.
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Meanwhile, Legit.ng reported earlier that the director-general of the NCDC disclosed that 90% of COVID-19 patients recover without any intervention.
Ihekweazu made this known at the media briefing of the presidential task force on COVID-19 on Wednesday, April 8.
The NCDC boss was reacting to a question on how the governor of Oyo state, Seyi Makinde, recovered from the virus in less than one week.
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