The Nigerian Centers for Disease Control (NCDC) said the low amount of coronavirus (COVID-19) in the country is due to fewer samples being collected in the states.
Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu, Director-General of the NCDC, on Thursday in Abuja at the briefing of the Presidential Working Group on COVID-19.
Ihekweazu, who represented through the head of the NCDC’s surveillance and epidemiology branch, Elsie Ilori, said the control labs were underutilized because the states did not collect enough samples for the lab to review.
As discussed earlier since Sallah’s breakup, some of our cases shown have been very low regarding what we had before, but it’s not because the numbers are low, but because we didn’t gather enough samples.
“If you realize that the number of samples collected by Salah was very small and we believe it was because of the festival season that some labs even took a break, it shouldn’t have been.
“So we’re running with the states so we’re temporarily challenging this challenge so that we don’t have this kind of situation anymore,” he said.
The CEO explained that the company needed the local government to have a pattern collection site in the country.
“We’ve started pilot projects at FCT where we have pattern meeting sites within the CTF and that’s what we need to expand to other states and we’re going to have pattern meeting sites in each and every local government in the country and this helps us gather enough patterns and all local government will be covered.
“On Monday, we talked about 85 local communities where we don’t meet patterns at all, we never verify, but if we have pattern collection sites in those local governments, they’ll be to verify or collect patterns and they’ll do checks.
“Therefore, we must ask our states to give priority and for Nigerians to come forward, too,” he said.
“We know we take a look at the stigma, other people say they don’t need to stop by to check the sites because they will be stigmatized.
“But I mean, it’s nothing to be ashamed of, we just had an example between us, it can happen to anyone.
“Then, please, let’s pass out and do a test,” he added.
However, he noted that this week World Mask Week.
He said: “I need to inspire us so that we can use our mask well and register with MaskOn9ja so that we can fight this COVID-19.”