The Director-General, Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu, has announced that no state in Nigeria is free of the COVID-19, and that no country in the world is equally free of the virus.
Ihekweazu, who confirmed this during the 45th joint national briefing of the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19, said “ We have to develop our laboratory capability to test: “either you start testing now or you start testing later”.
The NCDC DG noted that it can only be said that a state is free of the disease when it is testing and have an effective tool to fight the disease.
He said that states need to start testing now as the agency is working to develop its laboratory capacity to test more. “No state in Nigeria is COVID-19 free. No country in the world is COVID-19 free.
“That is why we have to keep doing this work we are doing, testing people, finding out if they have it.
“Even if some of us are lucky and get away with having asymptomatic infections, we have to test more.
“We can only talk about a state being disease free when we have an effective tool to fight the disease.
“That will come when we have a vaccine. “Until then, there is no easy way to say this. We have to keep pushing for these preventive measures,” Ihekweazu emphasised.
