By Hassan Zaggi
The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has debunked the claim by a section of the media that the number of COVID-19 cases have increase in the country by 45 per cent in the past few weeks.
Debunking the news report at a media briefing in Abuja, Monday, the Director General of the NCDC, Dr. Ifedayo Adetifa, described the headline as untrue, insisting that Nigeria did not witness 45% increase in COVID-19 cases and that the positivity rate of the country remained at 0.2 per cent.
According to him: “May I use this opportunity to correct the wrongful headlines that made the round Monday. There was a report of a 45 per cent increase in case numbers for the period of April 1-9 and the basis of that report was using absolute numbers.
“In the preceding week, there were 182 cases and it went up to 265 by April 9. Using raw numbers without denominators is wrong. When you say 182, 182 of how many? The denominator was not taken into account.
“This headline is untrue, we have not seen 45 per cent increase in cases. Our test positivity rate has stopped at 0.2 per cent in the two past weeks that we counted this month.”
The NCDC Director General, however, disclosed that his agency is currently concentrating on surveillance and strengthening of national referral laboratory network.
According to him: “In terms of COVID response update, we are using this period of relative quiet to concentrate on few things. One of them is that we need to maintain surveillance to be able to test so that we can identify cases, identify the virus and sequence it to identify what the variant may be at play in the country and to pick the entry or the introduction of any other variant of interest or variant of concern.
“In addition, we continue to strengthen our national referral laboratory network. Recently, we hosted the West African Health Organisation (WAHO) Laboratory audit team when it visited both the National Reference Lab in Gaduwa Abuja and the Central Public Health lab (CPHL) in Lagos.
“We are very pleased to report that in the West African region, the National Reference Lab was given a rating of five star and is top of the list as far as all the labs in the region is concern.
“The CPHL came a close second with a four star rating along our sister lab in the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development that is the National Veterinary and Research Institute Lab.”
The success recorded, according to him, was testimony and evidence of the federal government’s investment with support of partners.
“We continue to retain our capacity to test in large numbers, if there be an upsurge in cases.
“In 8 states, we have been able to show that we can test up to the recommended number per week and the evidence of this since it has started is part of what has contributed to the data that shows a steady decline in cases,” Adetifa said.
He, therefore, called on Nigerians to take extra measures to protect themselves from COVID-19 despite the relaxation of the travel advisory as no one is certain whether another variant of the virus will emerge.
“When things appear to be quite, we do not know what the virus is doing, we do not know whether another variant will emerge, but what we do know is that as long as we continue to have free rate transmission in mostly unvaccinated population, then the risk of the emergence of a new variant will persist.
“Following the relaxation of travel advisory, NCDC and partners are on a very high alert to watch what will happen with disease trends over this Easter period when we know we have a peak of travel and also towards the end of Ramadan when we know we have a bit of travel both domestically and gathering of people.”
