Minister: COVID-19 Testing Criteria Expanded To Include People With Fever, Respiratory Infection

The Minister for Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire, has said that the testing capacity in the country has been expanded to include all those with fever and respiratory tract symptoms, as the government intensifies its efforts to curb the spread of the COVID-19.

Ehanire said this on Wednesday during the briefing by the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 in Abuja.

“To ensure maximum testing capacity, the case definition and testing criteria have been expanded to include not only contacts of COVID-19 cases with fever and respiratory tract symptoms but all persons with fever and respiratory tract symptoms but also all persons with fever and respiratory tract symptoms of unknown cause,” he said.

Speaking further, he noted that the emergence of more cases of community transmissions has informed the need to quickly, identify, test and where necessary, isolate patients.

The health minister went further to explain that there are three levels of isolation centres.

The first, according to him, is for suspected cases of COVID-19 who are awaiting tests and results.

The second level is for confirmed COVID-19 cases with mild or moderate symptoms who need little or no clinical management and only need to be isolated from the community for the time they are infectious.

The third level is for confirmed COVID-19 cases with severe or critical symptoms who need enhanced clinical management or intensive care.

He, therefore, appealed to citizens to comply with invitations to isolation centres, saying “this is your best option of recovery and for detecting possible complications”.

Earlier on Wednesday, the Federal Capital Territory commenced community testing for residents.

The Director-General of the Nigeria Center for Disease Control (NCDC) said that “the target is to test 2,000 samples in Lagos, 1,000 in Abuja and in the rest of the country daily, of the right people who meet the case definition”.