The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control said that it has traced six thousand and seven hundred (6,700) contacts within the country over the outbreak of Coronavirus pandemic in Nigeria.

The NCDC’s Director-General, Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu, disclosed this at the Presidential Task Force presss briefing on COVID-19 in Nigeria, on Friday, April 3rd, 2020 in Abuja.

Nigeria has been tracing a total of 6,700 contacts in all; 71 per cent of them have been followed up as of yesterday (Thursday),

he said.

He emphasized that those people were “graduate” out of contact-tracing after fourteen (14) days, if they showed no symptoms of the deadly virus.

The DG said that this week the sole focus of the agency had been to enhance contact tracing, by taking advantage of the lockdown in Lagos, the FCT and Ogun.

In Lagos state, the lockdown has been especially helpful for our contact tracing,

he noted.

Ihekweazu clarified that the NCDC would never put any medical kits to deployment without first validating its use.

The Jack Ma Test kits are being evaluated at the moment, once we are sure the results are the same quality as what we have been seeing from existing tests, we will deploy them,

he explained.

He said that President Muhammadu Buhari had tasked the PTF not to rest until it finds a practical solution to the COVID-19 outbreak in the country.

There is a lot of work happening in the background to increase testing capacity but we need Nigerians to be patient,

he emphasised.

Ihekweazu said the updated case definition took into account, the transmission pattern seen in the country and the epidemiology of the vicious virus.

The NCDC DG said the agency would continue to review COVID-19 guidelines, such as the case definition, as more precise information emerge on the outbreak, including geographical spread and characteristics of transmission.

The major update to the current case definition is that any patient with acute respiratory illness within the last 10 days (fever and either cough, difficulty breathing or shortness of breath); and in absence of an alternative diagnosis that explains the clinical presentation.

Those residing or working in the last 14 days in an area identified by NCDC as a moderate or high prevalence region will be treated as a suspect case.

This is in addition to the already existing case definition where the focus was on symptomatic patients (fever and either cough, difficulty breathing or shortness of breath) who are recent international travelers within 14 days of arrival or contacts of confirmed cases,

he explained.

He noted that NCDC would continue to increase its COVID-19 testing capacity in Nigeria.

Justin Nwosu

Justin Nwosu is the founder and publisher of Flavision. His core interest is in writing unbiased news about Nigeria in particular and Africa in general. He’s a strong adherent of investigative journalism, with a bent on exposing corruption, abuse of power and societal ills.