NCDC tracing 6,000 contacts of COVID-19 cases

The Director- General of the Nigeria Center for Disease Control (NCDC), Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu, said on Monday the agency was now tracing 6,000 people who reportedly had contact with COVID-19 cases in the country.

He also said the NCDC had tested over 2,000 persons for the disease.

Chikwe, who stated these during an interview on Channels Television, also threw his weight behind President Muhammadu Buhari’s decision to impose movement restrictions in Lagos, Ogun and Abuja.

He said the best way to prevent further spread of COVID-19 is to limit movement and contact between people.

He said: “We appeal to Nigerians to bear the few weeks of pain to come and let’s see whether we can get on top of this.

“These weeks will allow our teams to have access to the contacts that are living around Lagos and FCT. We are following over 6,000 contacts of these 111 confirmed cases across these two cities. Every time we have a new case, we add about 50 to 60 contacts that we then have to follow every single day for 14 days.

“We hope that we can really use this time to buy some time to get ahead of the cases and ultimately see that curve start going down. But in the next few days, we still do expect an increase in cases.

“We have currently tested well over 2000 people and we will update those figures today or tomorrow. We have increased the number of laboratories in our network to six. We are activating Abakaliki today. There will be a seventh laboratory in our network.

“We are maximizing the opportunity of the equipment that we have and at the same time rolling out new laboratories. We’re very focused on increasing the testing capacity. We are being boxed down by people who do not require the test.”