Nigeria has recorded fewer than 100 confirmed cases of the novel Coronavirus till date, but anyone extolling that as a success story must be prepping for a doomsday.
This is as concerns are rife among medical experts that the cases have been coming in trickles due to the few number of persons tested for the contagion in Nigeria.
Are Nigerians paying too much attention to the next hit victim rather getting tested?
As of 26th March, only 846 persons have been tested for COVID-19 in Nigeria, the latest situation report obtained by The New Diplomat from the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) revealed. Of the figure, 250 came from Lagos, the epicentre of the pandemic in Nigeria. At the close of tally on Saturday, Lagos had reported 59 confirmed cases.
Whereas, elsewhere around world, countries are scaling up their COVID-19 testing, the number is abysmally low in Nigeria, a country of over 200 million people.
As of the time of this reporting global data, revealing the actual number of persons tested for the lethal virus across countries are scarce –not even WHO have that now, however, a few number of countries have been transparent in reporting the actual daily figure of Coronavirus tests conducted and not just the number of tests that come out positive alone.
Bring it home to Africa, the number of persons tested for COVID-19 in South Africa stood at over 20,000 as at the time when the country’s case tally was 1,000. Meanwhile, it recorded its index case a week after Nigeria’s on February 27. South Africa’s confirmed cases hit 1,187, Saturday and its rapid testing routines have played a huge role in quarantining that lot away from its larger population.
According to a Community Medicine and Research Expert, Dr. Yetunde Owoeye, testing is the critical first step for a number of reasons: breaking Coronavirus’ circle of spread, tracing of contacts and embarking on the patient’s healing. She warned that the clock is ticking on Nigeria and the failure to get more people tested could cause a somersault in Nigeria’s COVID-19 toll.
“We’re not testing because the country is not ready and we know how our country is being run.
“We don’t have enough testing kits and for a country of 200 million people that’s a challenge. Now, a testing kit costs about $505 for a pack and that can only test 20 people,” she said, disclosing that the country has limited number of testing kits — putting a question mark on the country’s capacity to deal with the outbreak if it becomes full-blown, a concern shared by many.
Recently, the nation took delivery of medical supplies donated by Chinese businessman and CEO of Ali Baba, Jack Ma. The donation included 20,000 testing kits and protective gears. Amid global scramble for testing kits, this is expected to aid testing in the meantime, even though it is still way below what would be required peradventure the nation witnesses a spike in cases.
Addressing a press conference on Friday, the Lagos State Health Commissioner, Prof. Akin Abayomi disclosed that the state had mathematical projected it could have up to 39,000 cases. This is as the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed also said on Thursday that the Nigerian authorities are in search of 4,370 “people of interest” in connection with the deadly coronavirus who were yet to turn up for COVID-19 test.
Meanwhile, in addition to the dismissal test figures so far, cases are under-reported; the non-disclosure technicalities around revealing confirmed case’s identity is a tragedy to contact tracing. And all this could combine to trigger shockwaves if the trend remains unaddressed by governments across tiers.
Citing the case of China which is already on its way to recovery after its waves of catastrophe, the medical expert noted that “it can get really bad before it becomes better,” hence, every country should brace up for “the eventuality rather thinking the virus would disappear overnight.”
Instead of rolling out the drums over the relatively low figures of confirmed cases in the country as seen in certain quarters, the question for the Nigerian government and the NCDC should be: How many persons have been tested? Are they increasing the testing capacity and kits? And that’s just to start with!
