A total of 138 members of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) have tested positive to COVID-19, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), said yesterday.
Disclosing this during the briefing by the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 in Abuja, the NCDC Director-General, Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu, said the safe reopening of the NYSC orientation camps across the country was successful.
He stated that none of those who tested positive was allowed into the camps.
According to him, "a total of 34,785 corps members and members of the camp communities have been tested so far in the last weeks of which only 138 was found positive, which is 0.4 per cent prevalence and 1 in 200 people."
Ihekweazu said those who tested positive were either managed at home or in a treatment centre depending on if they had symptoms and what state they were in.
The DG said the next challenge would be how to work with education stakeholders to ensure safe reopening of the universities.
"Universities have proven to be slightly risky; it has its unique challenges but we are confident that we can address this as we have done in other sectors like aviation," Ihekweazu stated.
Isolation is very necessary, the most important thing is to find the source of the virus, in order to better isolation and screening. Protective measures should be taken in densely populated areas. At present, the United States, India and other countries are high incidence places of covid-19. We should also pay attention to the personnel imported from these places to avoid causing large-scale infection.