The Director-General for the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control, Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu, disclosed that Nigerians were sending samples with fake names and addresses which makes it difficult for the states to track individuals with positive cases for isolation and treatment.
He said the center was concerned as regards the high-risk behavior by some Nigerians which may lead to further spread of the virus in the country.
The Director-General implore on Nigerians to learn some lessons from what is being experienced in Brazil which had the second-highest Covid19 deaths in the world.
Explaining the challenges facing the agency and the standard procedures for lab tests, he said that the samples they receive come with fake names and addresses when they go look for the person with the address they end up not finding anyone.
He said there are many problems they face every day which is reflective of other things but they keep trying to improve the situation, but as regards testing, they are carrying out the same standards across every laboratory. He said that they are observing a very strict quality assurance.
So far the NCDC has successfully carried out 92,924 tests across the country.
The NCDC Director-General also observed that there are many positive cases that have not been detected, warning that Nigerians should be careful and to observe strict NCDC guidelines.
He stated that they have seen many people pass away and four prominent governors have so far been affected, he keeps wondering why people doubt the statistics they publish.
He stated that they don’t think they have found all the positive cases in Nigeria and he insisted that there are many more positive cases that have not been discovered.
The Director-General stressed that he urged all Nigerians to take the number of cases seriously saying that they are actually people that are infected. He said each time they announce such a result, the next day, there is always a new case across the country. He said everybody will get a result to reveal their status.
Mr. Geoffrey Oyeama disclosed that they are planning to evacuate 1000 Nigerians abroad per week, stressing that the committee hopes to complete this exercise within four weeks.
Dr. Sani Aliyu, the PTF coordinator, revealed that the contributions by Nigerians which makes one of the streams of funds for the nation’s response to Covid19 are now at N850 million.
He also mentioned that N22 billion aside by President Muhammadu Buhari, as the Covid19 intervention fund, has spent only 0.02% of the funds.
