NCDC Rallies Nigerians to Stop Indian COVID-19 Variant

By Eromosele Abiodun and Nume Ekeghe

The Director-General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Dr. Chike Ihekweazu, has called on Nigerians to do more to curtail the spread of the Indian strain of COVID-19 virus in the country.

He appealed to them to lead by example by wearing face masks and decline invitation to attend events where there would be mass gathering, which he described as supper spreaders.

The NCDC boss made the appeal during an interview on ARISE NEWS channel, the broadcast arm of THISDAY Newspapers.

He added that the information on the variant being in Nigeria, which is also in other 44 countries is not in itself a reason for concern.

“The reason for concern is what are we doing as a government and second as a people – what are we doing?

“There is no point running around and attending weddings and at super spreading events without masks and then worrying about the emergence of a variant. We are advising Nigerians to do what they can do while we at NCDC would continue doing our very best 24/7 every day.”

He stated that it was important for state governors to ensure compliance with COVID-19 guidelines, adding that “but we as citizens should make sure we do our best. We can only sustain the very fragile gains we have made if we continue to work together.”

He said the federal government had taken steps to curb the spread of the Indian strain (B1617 strain).

“What government is doing is not enough to manage the risk of the pandemic in Nigeria. We have to do our own and we appeal to our citizens to do their part. It is one thing for the media to discuss the strain from India, but if the media ignores the mass gathering that is happening and having people appear without masks where they should be role models for the rest of the citizenry to manage the risks, we face collectively a huge risk.

“I want Nigerians to look at what is going on in a few other countries and not externalise it. We would do our best from our side, but let us not drop the ball on this. We managed to get through a tricky situation last year and now our numbers are low; let us not get complacent and let us change the narrative by doing what we can do collectively as a government and as a people,” he added.

He said the NCDC had been working very hard to mitigate the impact of the Indian strain. He said: “That there is a new strain in the country in itself is not enough to make a decision. We also look at the density of travel from every country. We look at the strain circulating in other countries and we then look at the risk assessment and a very carefully thought through the process within the center and based on this, we then advise the presidential steering committee on actions necessary to be taken.”

Ihekweazu said the NCDC had two weeks ago, advised the government on a travel restriction from three countries: India Turkey and Brazil.

He said the public health action was taken based on the assessment done at the NCDC

Ihekweazu stated that the sequencing on how to determine variant was a complex process, “and we have been developing that capacity in the country. I can assure Nigerians that we would be transparent as we possibly can on the numbers, testing sequencing and whatever we can at the appropriate time.”

According to him, the numbers of cases have reduced while testing has improved significantly.

He stated: “We test 40,000 people every single week and out of that, our test positivity ratio is about 1 per cent. So, one in 100 people tested come out positive. So, we are fairly confident in the robustness of our numbers. Also, the number of people with respiratory symptoms has reduced as well as the number of calls. The data gives us confidence in the number we are sharing.”

The NCDC, he said, had encouraged some testing centres to manage their human resources and always keep some surge capacity available.

He said the NCDC had also been working to ensure oxygen supply is more efficient.

“There are certain aspects of treatment and we have seen from India that oxygen supply is critical and we have to build up our capacities on that too. So, in order to build resilient, we are buying more than we need, we know that some of those might be wasted if they are not used by the time they have to be used but it is better we do that and have the redundant capacity in that area like in oxygen than end up in a situation where the system is overwhelmed,“ he stated explained.