“Ten new cases of #COVID19 have been reported in Nigeria: 6 in Lagos, 2 in FCT and 2 in Edo,” NCDC said.
“As at 11:15 am 5th April there are 224 confirmed cases of #COVID19 reported in Nigeria. Twenty-seven have been discharged with five deaths.
While the total number of the tested patients is not made public, it is widely believed that Nigeria is not testing people enough due to limited testing kits.
Last Wednesday, Nigeria received test kits and protective gear from China’s richest man, Jack Ma, to help fight novel coronavirus.
Nigeria’s top health official, Abdulaziz Abdullahi, said that the country received 100,000 face masks, 1,000 protective gowns and 20,000 test kits and they will be distributed to frontline health workers and hospital laboratories.
But after recieving the test kits there are still difficulties in tracing people that might had contacts with positive patients before they were isolated.
Director-General NCDC, Chikwe Ihekweazu, earlier this week disclosed that his team was looking for about 6,000 people who had contacts with COVID-19 patients in Lagos and Abuja.
“These weeks will allow our teams to have access to the contacts that are living around Lagos and FCT,” he said on Monday.
Both places are currently in lockdown and Ihekweazu hoped that health workers would be able to escalate contact tracing.
“We are following over 6,000 contacts of the 111 confirmed cases across these two cities. Every time we have a new case, we add about 50 to 60 contacts to follow every single day for 14 days,” he added.
Nigeria Government has also expressed that the country may experience “exponential” increase in coronavirus infections in “days ahead” if the contacts of confirmed cases are not tracked down quicker.
