Joseph Bakare
The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), is considering other workable options to meet the shortage of bed spaces in isolation centres.
Director General of NCDC, Chikwe Ihekweazu disclosed this on Friday during the presidential taskforce briefing on COVID-19.
Ihekweazu said the plan would be unveiled in the coming days.
The country currently has 3,500 bed capacity and in dire need of bed capacity, as a result of the rising number of confirmed cases of the virus, he said.
“We have a big challenge across the country right now, especially in Lagos, Kano, Zamfara, a few states where the number of new cases is outweighning the capacity to continue implementing our policy of institutional isolation of all the cases, whether it’s asymptomatic, or severe, which is the current policy.
“But right now, the reality we are facing is the implementation of that policy is very difficult.
“No country has found it easy across the world to increase its hospital capacity by 300, 400, 500 percent, which is what is required to respond to this outbreak, using the current policy.
“So we’re considering other options and over the next few days we’ll share this options with you. Not because these are options that we would like to consider but they’re options they’re been forced into considering.”
He disclosed that a good number of patients are not at the institutions/isolations centres, as a result of struggling with capacity across the country.
He further said: “This is the largest public health response in Nigeria’s history.”
Responding to a question on the number of test kits, the NCDC boss said the centre had 30,000 test kits, but noted that it planned to have two million test kits in the next two to three months.
He also revealed that NCDC had trained 25,000 health workers to build capacity in response to the pandemic.