The Director-General of the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control, (NCDC) Chikwe Ihekweazu has said that their likelihood the coronavirus pandemic will spread to all states of the federation.
Ihekweazu made this statement while entertaining a live TV program on Channels Television today, saying, now the coronavirus is in 22 states and has the capability of spreading to other states of Nigeria.
However, when asked why the country was not shut down because of Lassa fever outbreak?
Responding he said, the Lassa fever outbreak was not as pandemic as what we are experiencing with the COVID-19
The NCDC DG in his statement which partly said;
“We have responded to Lassa smoothly and nobody shut down the country because it wasn’t necessary, the response was fairly efficient,” he said.
“Now, COVID-19 is on a much larger scale – at the moment in 22 states but it will grow to every state in Nigeria, there is no reason why it won’t – it is a respiratory virus,”
Ihekweazu said the health agency has launched a testing centre in Kano state to enhance the testing capacity.
He revealed the test centre in Kano was activated few days ago and it was done in-line with the government determination to increase our testing capacity, he stated.
He added; “The tests are fairly robust; I can’t say 100 per cent but they are as close to that as possible.
We had the highest number of positive cases in a single day.
“Since the onset of the outbreak, we are testing a lot more (and) that is beginning to show.
It is only so much we can do from NCDC;
we are working with the state governments.
The NCDC bass said this is Virus and is pandemic, his agency awe the state and the local community the response because they have to face the reality.
He predicted that it will circulate in Nigeria, and as a country, we must be more prepared to be able to identify, isolate and treat the disease he said.
