AT a press briefing on March 16 in Geneva, Director-General of the World Health Organisation, WHO, Tedros Ghebreyesus, disclosed that without early testing of suspected cases of the coronavirus the chain of infection will not be broken.

“ The backbone of every country’s public health response to this outbreak is testing, isolation, and contact tracing.

“If they test positive, isolate them & find out who they have been in close contact with up to 2 days before they developed symptoms and test those people too,” he said.

Since the first index case was recorded in Nigeria, less than 100 cases of coronavirus infections have been documented as at March 25.

The country boasts of five testing centres spread across four states namely Abuja, Edo, Lagos, and Osun.

Data from Nigeria’s Centre for Disease Control, NCDC, shows that 333 people had been tested as at March 26.

The NCDC’s approach in managing the coronavirus spread is restricting tests to people who show severe symptoms of the disease or have come in contact with confirmed cases.

For a population of over 200 million people, the number of people tested for coronavirus in Nigeria pales into insignificance when compared to other African countries with testing facilities at the same operating capacity as Nigeria.

Data obtained from South Africa’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases, NICD, shows that the country has carried out over 20,471 tests as at March 26 which is more than 50 times compared to tests conducted in Nigeria whose first index case was recorded a week before South Africa.

According to records from WHO, only 36 of 54 countries in Africa have the capacity to test for the coronavirus, but an increase in cases of the virus could overwhelm these laboratories.

Hala Zayed, Egypt’s Health Minister in a press conference to review how coronavirus infections have spread in the country and the government’s response said an estimated 25,000 people had been subjected to tests in Egypt as at March 26.

The ongoing tests will continue alongside the closure of airports nationwide, which has now been extended through April 15.

Egypt’s Health Ministry offers testing for citizens for 1,050 Egyptian Pounds, an equivalent of $66 which could take 3 or 4 days. Quick test results that could be available in hours costs as high as 2,500 pounds, approximately $158.

Ghana Health Services, GHS, confirmed on its website as of March 26, it had conducted 2,228 tests among which 138 cases were affirmed positive based on the results since its first index case was recorded on March 12.

READ MORE: https://www.icirnigeria.org/four-weeks-after-first-coronavirus-case-nigeria-performs-poorly-in-conducting-tests/

Nigeria my beloved country.