COVID-19: Nigeria will live with pandemic for one year — NCDC

The Director-General of the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu, on Friday said that Nigerians must learn to live with the Covid-19 pandemic for at least one year.

Speaking at the media briefing by the Presidential Task Force on Covid-19 in Abuja, Iheakweazu said it is a reality our hospitals must live with instead of sending patients away.

“This message is for hospitals in the country. We have to live with this disease for at least one year at its very best, so we can’t turn our patients away,” he said.

Iheakweazu added: “Most hospitals have set up holding areas when there is uncertainty about diagnosis and the individual is showing symptoms.

“Every hospital should have a holding area and we have been supporting hospitals.

He added that hospitals, private or government-owned, should have a holding room where patients can be kept until a government owned ambulance would come to pick them to a designated treatment centre.

He noted that most hospitals are being supported to become sample collection sites in order to boost the national testing strategy.

– The Nation