COVID-19: NCDC Reveals Number Of Tested Persons In Nigeria

Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), has disclosed the number of people that the agency has been able to test for the virulent COVID-19 infection in the country.

Chikwe Ihekweazu, director-general of NCDC, on Thursday said about 22,000 persons have been tested for COVID-19 in Nigeria.

The NCDC helmsman made the disclosure at presidential task force briefing on COVID-19 in Abuja.

He noted that the figures the agency divulged to the public only gave lowdown on those tested and not the numbers of tests conducted

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He said patients who tested positive for the virus underwent series of tests which are not counted and updated into the system.

He explained that the numbers the centre churned out was not an incontrovertible reflection of the amount of shift it was putting in, and that, if anything, the numbers played down the massive work the centre was doing across the country.

“The data shared is on people tested not on tests done. The data we share when we say we have done about 22,000 tested, those are on people tested; we don’t include all the series of tests,” he said.

“Every individual that is positive will have to be tested every three, four or five days. And some would have stayed in the hospital for about four weeks, so all those are tests being done as well and all of that are on the lab.

“So the numbers are really not fully representing the works being done in the labs across the country. We are not reflecting those numbers in the numbers we share everyday.”

Ihekweazu revealed that 21 laboratories are now functional to consolidate COVID-19 testing capacity in the country.

He said a new laboratory would soon be ready for use in Port Harcourt, capital of Rivers, to increase the number to 22.

As of Thursday evening, the country recorded 3,526 confirmed cases of the disease, out of which 534 patients have been discharged, while 103 persons have died