NCDC: 223 COVID-19 patients got infected from unknown sources

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) says 223 of the 873 confirmed COVID-19 cases in the country got infected from “unknown sources”.

This was contained in its situation report of April 22, 2020, published on Thursday, and which covered 25 states and the federal capital territory (FCT).

Of the total of 873 cases, 197 persons have been discharged, while 28 deaths have occurred; the three deaths reported on Wednesday occurred in Ekiti, Oyo and Borno.

The report also showed that of the total of 9,522 samples tested for coronavirus, 588 were conducted in the last 24 hours.

According to the information given on the origin of infection of the affected cases, 210 persons have travel history, 317 are contacts of infected persons, 123 have “incomplete information”, while 223 persons are listed to have been infected from “unknown sources”.

More males than females have tested positive, with 616 males confirmed positive for coronavirus compared to 257 females, the group affected are mostly aged between 31 and 40.

A total of 9,257 persons of interest have been identified, with 9,131 said to have exceeded follow-up, which represents 99 percent of the total figure.

At the presidential task force on COVID-19 briefing in Abuja on Thursday, a question was raised on the testing capacity of the country, considering that African countries like Ghana and South Africa have conducted more tests than Nigeria.

As of April 22, 2020, the figures from the Ghana health service showed that 68,591 persons have been tested, with 1,042 confirmed positive, while in South Africa, 143,570 tests have been conducted as of April 23, with 3,953 discovered to have tested positive for coronavirus.

In his response to the question, Chikwe Ihekweazu, NCDC director-general, said the country was not engaged in a “game of numbers”.

“We’re not playing a numbers game with testing. We have a strategy; we’ll stick to that strategy and make sure we deliberately increase the number of tests, but while testing the right people at the right time,” he had said.