Chidi Samuel| Nigeria on Thursday confirmed 125 new cases of #COVID19 bringing the country’s virus burden to 57,849.
In a Tweet on its verified twitter hande, the Nigeria Centre For Disease Control said the new infections were recorded in 13 states across the country.
According to NCDC, Lagos reported 37 new cases followed by Plateau -18,
FCT-17, Ogun-15, and Rivers-10.
Other states that reported new infections include, Benue-7, Kaduna-7,
Anambra-5, Oyo-3, Cross River-2, Ondo-2, Edo-1, and Imo-1.
The health agency also noted that so far 49,098 persons have recovered from the disease, with 1,102 fatalities.
-NCDC warns of second wave of Coronavirus
Meanwhile, the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has warned that there is likely to be an even more devastating second wave of coronavirus in Adamawa and other states in the country due to the non-compliance to COVID-19 health guidelines.
A technical adviser in the implementation of NCDC’s action plan in Adamawa State, Fahad Mohammed, who dropped the hint during the sensitisation of officials of the Nigerian police, civil defence, immigration and correctional services, and road safety personnel in Yola, said that the NCDC was driven to ensure more persons are tested so that the spread of this deadly disease can be addressed and tamed.
According to him, the biggest concern was that people are not taking tests, “because some of them do not believe that the pandemic is real and that is why we have a low number of positive cases.
“Where you observe low numbers, it means tests are not being undertaken and if you are doing a lot of tests and getting negative results, then you ask who are the people being tested? What is the criteria?” he noted.
The NCDC official, who expressed serious concern with the low testing for COVID-19 in the state, revealed that “there are about seven LGs in Adamawa where testing has never taken place. You can’t say there is no such disease in the areas.
“There is serious concern, (though we don’t pray and God forbid) that there is likely to be even more devastating second wave of coronavirus in Adamawa and other states due to the non-compliance to COVID-19 health guidelines and people declining tests,’’ he warns.
“So the new move will allow us to know the true story of infections in the state. In the next one two or three months, we shall finish the target test of one per cent of the population of the state.
“We will open test centres in all the local governments of Adamawa State. These test centres will allow residents to get tested seamlessly and obtain results in two to three days.
“We want to test at least one per cent of the population of the state after which we will plot the graphs and we shall tell the people whether we are flattening the curve or not.
“NCDC has deployed its staff to all the states to support states’ response to the COVID-19. We want to know the status of these states.
“We want to know the challenges. We had a meeting with security operatives including police, road safety and soldiers so as to tell them our positions.
“We want them to help us in enforcing some of the measures the states will bring in the near future.
“We tell them to enforce compliance with the usage of face masks, observing social distancing at events and preventing large gatherings.
“We have educated them on that so that they can escalate the message to their respective institutions. We want to enhance testing in such a way a person can get himself COVID-19 tested the way he could obtain a malaria test. We want to take it to all the hospitals,” he said.
He noted that the reason behind NCDC’s enhanced testing arises from concerns that the country is approaching the harmattan season, coupled with the fact that some states will in no distant time face flooding, which naturally comes with its own challenges such as cholera, diarrhoea and others.
“We shall continue to sensitise the populace that COVID-19 is real and there is no cure yet.”
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