PTF: About 80% of COVID-19 patients are managed outside isolation centres

Sani Aliyu, national coordinator of the presidential task force (PTF) on COVID-19, says about 80 percent of COVID-19 cases in the country are being managed outside isolation centres.

He disclosed this in his response to a question at the PTF briefing on Thursday.

According to him, there were concerns on availability of bed spaces considering the rise in the number of COVID-19 cases across the country.

“Availability of beds vary across states. About 80% of those that are positive in the country are currently being managed outside isolation facilities,” he said.

“Some states have a lot of capacity in terms of beds. I know Kano and Lagos have run out of beds. A few other states are red. We actually have a line listing, an amber-coloured listing of states that are in the red where you have more positive cases than beds available.

“We cannot move patients around from one state to the other, so obviously, if we run out of spaces — Lagos, for instance, may have five or six times the number of cases than Kano which is the second state in terms of numbers of cases — you are going to have a lot of people contributing to that population.”

As of June 10, 2020, more than 13,000 COVID-19 cases had been confirmed in 35 states and the federal capital territory, and out of this figure, 4,351 recoveries and 382 deaths have been recorded.