COVID-19: Nigeria will live with pandemic for at least 1 year – NCDC boss

Nigeria will have to live with coronavirus for at least one year

This was prediction was made by the NCDC boss, Chikwe Ihekweazu

Ihekweazu state that this is a reality Nigerian hospitals must accept

Chikwe Ihekweazu, the director-general of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has said that the reality of the coronavirus in the country is that the disease will be around for at least one year.

Ihekweazu made this revelation during the briefing of the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on Covid-19 in Abuja on Friday, July 24, The Nation reports.

The NCDC boss stated that it will be best for hospitals in the country to live with the reality instead of driving away patients that are in dire need of medical attention.

He said: “This message is for hospitals in the country. We have to live with this disease for at least one year at its very best, so we can’t turn our patients away.”

Ihekweazu said that this is because the agency’s testing capacity for the virus, due to available technology, cannot make for quick release of test results.

NCDC’s director-general admitted: “The technology that we have for testing, even if it works optimally, cannot provide us a test as quickly as possible.”

Meanwhile, Legit.ng reported that the NCDC on Saturday, July 25, released the latest update on the coronavirus infections in the country with a death toll that is rather threatening.

As at Saturday night, the NCDC revealed that Nigeria has 438 infections added to what it already has, taking the number of cases much nearer to 40,000 (precisely 39977).

Coronavirus: Engaging activities you can do to avoid boredom following the stay at home order
Among states that had new infections, Lagos was still top on the list with 123 cases, followed by Kaduna (50) and Rivers (40).

However, the good news was that the number of persons who had been discharged are increasing daily, presently 16948 recoveries.

At the bottom of the list are Niger and Sokoto state both of which had 1 case.

Comments

comments