Nigeria Will Live With Covid-19 For At Least 1 Year – NCDC

Amidst talks and calls for total relaxation of the lockdown in Nigeria, the Director-General of the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu, on Friday said that Nigerians should prepare to live with the Covid-19 for at least, a period of one year.

Ihekweazu who made this known during them briefing by the Presidential Task Force on Covid-19 in Abuja, said it is a sad truth, but the stark reality we must all prepare to live with.

“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.

“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.

“We have an IPC team that has been supporting all the tertiary hospitals in Nigeria to set up triage centres. A triage centre is when you come in, you are screened and if your symptoms are similar to those of Covid-19, you are put in a holding area until we can determine the diagnosis.

“The technology that we have for testing, even if it works optimally, cannot provide us a test as quickly as possible.”