TheCable

Eight weeks after Nigeria recorded its index case of coronavirus – on February 27, 2020 – a total of 6,649 persons have so far been tested.

This is according to the latest situation report of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), dated April 16, 2020.

This is significantly above the 178 persons tested as of March 24, but Ghana has tested 50,719, with 641 persons confirmed to be positive for COVID-19.

The US currently has the highest COVID-19 figures with 678,210 confirmed cases out of 3,411,494 persons tested.

Sani Aliyu, national coordinator of the presidential task force on COVID-19, at a media briefing in Abuja on Monday, said there would not be mass testing, but that the NCDC would focus on testing people who show symptoms of COVID-19.

“There is no room for community testing for coronavirus. I would rather conduct hundred tests and get 10 positives than do a thousand tests and get 10 positives. It is all about improving the efficacy of the test. It is much better to test people that have symptoms because what we call the pretest probability is much higher,” Aliyu had said.

According to the latest figures from the NCDC, 442 COVID-19 cases have been confirmed in 19 states and the federal capital territory (FCT) so far.

A breakdown of the 442 cases showed that 210 of the patients had travel history, 129 were contacts of confirmed patients, 11 patients sources of contracting the virus was marked “unknown”, while 92 persons had “incomplete” information.

As of April 16, 2020, 152 persons had been discharged, while 13 fatalities have been recorded.

The update also showed that of a total of 9,209 passengers of interest, 9,058 patients had “exceeded follow-up”.

While more men have tested positive for coronavirus with 314 patients compared to 128 females, persons aged 31 to 40 are the most affected, according to the NCDC report.

Lagos has the highest number of confirmed cases with 251 patients, but 90 of them have been discharged.