By our reporter| About 40 health workers have tested positive for coronavirus (COVID-19) in the country, Nigeria health minister, Osagie Ehanire has disclosed.
The minister made the disclosure at Thursday’s briefing of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 in Abuja.
He, therefore, appealed to medical workers in the frontline of the COVID-19 fight to always protect themselves while attending to infected patients.
“I urge you all to take the necessary precautions. Please do not try to treat patients without adequate PPE,” he said, referring to health workers.
“This advice is necessary due to the number of health workers who have tested positive, they are over 40 now and some others have had to be quarantined in the last two weeks due to exposure and are therefore not able to contribute to the health sector efforts.
“I urge you all to remain vigilant in the line of duty.”
The minister also attributed the high number of new COVID-19 cases to improved testing capacity.
He said, “The high number of new cases is a manifestation of improved testing but also of ongoing community transmission.”
“The NCDC laboratories have the capacity to test 1,500 samples per day in 13 laboratories per day.
“We are testing an average of 600 samples per day because that is all the samples collected and sent for testing.”
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