The Federal Government said it might mull over treating COVID-19 patients at home, due to the shortage of bed spaces at isolation centres.

The Director-General of the Nigeria Center for Disease Control (NCDC), Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu, made this revelation during the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 press briefing on Thursday, April 30th, 2020.

He said there was bed spaces shortage, particularly in Lagos and partly in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja and Kano State where coronavirus cases were high.

The NCDC’s DG said,

Across the country we have about 3,500 bed spaces identified and available for COVID-19. But in Lagos, we are already struggling.

We are going to work with that to keep trying and making more spaces available but ultimately we might have to change our strategy a little bit, considering home care in certain circumstances where the person is able to provide a room where he or she can be managed sufficiently and secondly we are able to support the care by enabling health workers to come to the house.

We will always be honest with Nigerians, we are struggling at the moment, we might have to adapt our strategy because of the realities we face over the next few days and weeks. As we do that we will make that clear to Nigerians. Our policy hasn’t changed but the pressure is there and it might have to change in the next few days.

The Federal Government had earlier asked state governments to make available at least three hundred (300) bed-space isolation centres available in their states, due to the rising number of confirmed coronavirus (COVID-19) cases. Moreover, it also called on homeowners to donate their buildings to serve as temporary isolation centres.

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.