Chikwe Ihekweazu, director-general of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), says the agency is not satisfied with the number of samples brought in for testing from states without cases of coronavirus.
Only Cross River, Kogi, Nassarawa and Yobe states have not confirmed cases of the disease in Nigeria as of Monday.
Speaking at the media briefing of the presidential task force on COVID-19 in Abuja, the NCDC DG said there is a lot of capacity to test but the challenge is getting the samples to test.
“Only four states at the moment haven’t reported a case in Nigeria. They are Cross River, Kogi, Nassarawa and Yobe,” he said.
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“We have looked at the number of samples collected from these states and we are not satisfied. So, we need to test more. But to test more, we need to collect more and the collection part is the responsibility of the states and their public health teams.
“You can’t hide this. Eventually, it will emerge. It is better we understand what is happening early than leave it till we start hearing stories of deaths. So, we are really encouraging the public health teams in these states to push out. There is absolutely no doubt that there are people that have pneumonia, acute respiratory infections in your states.
“Please collect samples, send them to us let’s us test and know whether you have this thing circulating in your state and mount an appropriate response. If it’s not, it’s not but we cannot know if we don’t test.”
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As of Sunday, Nigeria had a total of 1,273 confirmed cases of COVID-19.
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