By Deborah Onyofufeke
Minister of State for Health, Dr Olorunnimbe Mamora, stated that Lassa fever cases in the country are alarmingly on the increase with a 19.1 per cent fertility rate
Dr Mamora, disclosed this information in Abuja, during the Ministry of Health’s bi-weekly press briefing, where he stated that in this ongoing year alone, 132 persons have died of Lassa Fever, 3, 746 suspected cases and 691 confirmed cases in 23 states.
Speaking on the COVID-19 situation in the country, Mamora said the information about the 45% increment in the COVID-19 cases in the country in the last few weeks, which has been making the rounds in some newspapers, was untrue
He added that data from the National Primary Health Care Development Agency, NPHCDA, shows that 6per cent of those who received the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine returned to take the second dose.
In the response to COVID-19 in the country, the minister said as, o the 10th of April 2022, it has been recorded that 4,969,571 million persons have been tested for COVID-19 using either Polymerase Chain Reaction or Rapid Diagnostic Test.
He said: “As of 11 April 2022 the reports from the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control reveal that about 255,468 Nigerians have tested positive to the virus, there are 2,719 active cases while 249,607 people have been treated and discharged, while 3,142 have lost their lives sadly”.
“COVID-19 safety measures have also been revised with effect from April 2022 which include Mask wearing in enclosed environments is strongly recommended, personal discretion is advised in open places amongst others”.
“The Federal Government has also commenced planning on the inauguration of scaling up sequencing at the end of April 2022”.
“The NPHCDA has confirmed that Nationally, 60% of People that have received their first dose have returned to take their second doses and that the NPHCDA is making conscious efforts to reduce wastage rates of vaccine minimally by ensuring that all forms of hesitancy are handled and people cnomplete their doses”.
“Some of the strategies employed to curb vaccine wastage are the Service Integration Strategy and also innovations which have yielded positive results so far”.
“Despite all efforts, a lot still has to be done to reach the 50% eligible population vaccinated by the second quarter of the year 2022”.
“The total number of the eligible population fully vaccinated with first and second dose as of 10th April 2022 is 13,588,718, while for the first dose is 23,012,700 and for 2″ dose is 10,727,259 of the total eligible population targeted which is 111,776,503”.
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“Point of Entry records shows that there has been high compliance of PCR result on arrival at inbounds States, especially in Lagos and Abuja and a negligible number of passengers that seek for PCR test on arrival.
“However, little resistance has been noticed in Kano and Enugu with passengers not wanting to pay for their PCR test. 91.3% has been recorded for travel permit compliance in Lagos while FCT is following closely with 71.17%. Also, there haven’t been any positive cases recorded for COVID-19 PCR test at the oil platforms”,he said.
The minister said,“The case Management Pillar has recorded 31 new cases from 6 States (Kaduna, FCT, Abia, Rivers, Delta and Lagos having the highest number of cases )”.
“As of 8th of April, 2022, the total number of confirmed cases was 255,606, active cases was 2,746, a total number of discharges 249,718 and fortunately no new deaths have been recorded in the past 7 weeks.
“The Ministry in collaboration with WHO commemorated the 2022 World Health Day with the theme: Our Planet, Our Health on the 72nd World Health Day in 2022.
“This year’s commemoration took a deep dive into the current impact of various environmental crises such as climate change, avoidable pollution, foodborne diseases, emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases and extreme weather events on the planet’s health and most especially the health of every living creature – humans, plants and animals”, he said.
Açcording to him, “To change the current native, the Federal Government has initiated discussion with relevant stakeholders to discourse on the central scientific issues that will improve the health of humans and the entire planet at large”.
The Director-General of the NCDC, Dr Ifedayo Adetifa, said the positivity rate of Nigeria regarding COVID-19 cases still stands at 0.2 per cent, contrary to the media report that claimed 45 percent.
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He said: “May I use this opportunity to correct the wrongful headlines that made the round Monday. There was a report of a 45 per cent increase in cases of numbers for the period of April 1-9 and the basis of that report was using absolute numbers.
“In the preceding week, there were 182 cases and it went up to 265 by April 9. Using raw numbers without denominators is wrong. When do you say 182, 182 of how many? The denominator was not taken into account.
“This headline is untrue, we have not seen a 45 per cent increase in cases. Our test positivity rate has stopped at 0.2 per cent in the two past weeks that we counted this month.”
“In terms of COVID response update, we are using this period of relative quiet to concentrate on a few things. One of them is that we need to maintain surveillance to be able to test so that we can identify cases, identify the virus and sequence it to identify what the variant may be at play in the country and to pick the entry or the introduction of any other variant of interest or variant of concern.
