COVID-19 test kits now being sold in black markets, NCDC raises alarm vanguardnews
…Warns hospitals against rejecting patients…Kogi’s 2 cases: Contact tracing must begin – NCDCabuja—Director-General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, NCDC, Chikwe Ihekweazu, said yesterday Nigerians have started selling COVID-19 diagnostic test kits in “black markets”.
“There is a growing black market on rapid diagnostics test kits in Nigeria, we have to be careful in what we buy, how we use it and how we interpret the results that they provide,” he said. Chairman of the Presidential Task Force, PTF, on COVID-19 and Secretary to Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha, who raised the alarm at the PTF daily briefing in Abuja, also lamented that even federal tertiary hospitals were in the forefront of the rejection of patients.
“The Minister of Health has reached out to all medical directors, directing them to continue providing regular medical services, so we do not end up with avoidable deaths. Truth be told, we are having more deaths from non-attendance to other diseases than even COVID-19. ‘’We will be engaging in very high level public awareness campaigns in these areas. We will also be pushing for expansion of testing and making testing more accessible and available within the local governments.“We will also be exploring the possibility of locking down the areas with high incidents, what we call precision lockdown. But this has to be linked with the provision of palliatives. It is easier to lockdown a small part of the country than locking down states or whole regions.
He said: “The Minister of Health was in touch with the governor over the last couple of days because everybody is working very hard to resolve this issue. There is no controversy in the two cases. They followed absolutely normal practice. This were patients that were referred from the Federal Medical Centre to the National Hospital.”
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