The Minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire said on Friday that a total of 277 COVID-19 patients are undergoing treatment across the isolated centers in the country.
Speaking during the daily press briefing on COVID-19 update in Abuja, the minister also revealed that more people with COVID-19 were being detected and transferred to treatment centres.
Ehanire said “As of today, 17th April, 2020, a total of 442 people in 20 states have been confirmed to have COVID-19. The 35 new confirmations are distributed as follows: 19 in Lagos, 9 in FCT, 5 in Kano and 2 in Oyo. 13 deaths, all with comorbidities, have been recorded so far, and 152 people have recovered from COVID-19 in Nigeria and have been discharged.
“This means there are 277 persons who have COVID-19 being cared for in our isolation and treatment centres across the country. The recent marked increase in the numbers of new COVID-19 cases is due likely, to scaled-up implementation of our new case-finding strategy, as well as the result of rising community transmission.
“With house-to-house and cluster testing, and using the revised criteria for sample collection, yield has increased. More people with COVID-19 are being detected and transferred to treatment centres.”
To this end, the minister said there will be more social mobilization for community testing at grassroots level and Isolation of positive cases, while the Presidential Task Force shall ensure that right message is disseminated to control ongoing transmission.
He said: “In this regard, I must again emphasise that citizens are obliged to disclose complete and accurate information to health workers, especially about their travel history or contact with persons who have or had COVID-19.
This, according to him is important because full disclosure allows health workers to promptly investigate, diagnose and treat correctly, to improve chances of patient survival and recovery.
Besides, right information also keeps the health workers safe; warning that withholding the truth puts both the user and caregiver at risk, and also other patients on site.
“Several health workers, who must then self-isolate as a result of exposure to a positive patient, will also be put out of circulation. This is not what we can afford with the limited number of health workers in the country,” he warned.