As the number of Nigerians infected by the Coronavirus continues to rise, reaching 81 on Friday, the College of Nigerian Pathologists (CNP) has asked the federal government to substantially decentralize the testing centres to accelerate the control of the outbreak, warning against the use of non-validated test kits in handling Covid-19 disease tests.
In a statement by CNP President, Professor P O Olatunji, the body expressed dismay over the restriction of testing centres to five facilities in Lagos, Irua (Edo), Ede (Osun) and the national reference laboratories in Abuja, saying there were competent pathologists and medical laboratory scientists in tertiary hospitals that carry out COVID-19 tests; urging the government to spread out the testing centres across the country.
“We do not see any reason why our tertiary healthcare centres where competent pathologists and medical laboratory scientists are situated, cannot carry out COVID-19 tests. We urge the federal and state governments to deploy a portion of the COVID-19 budget to bridge whatever deficiencies exist in our tertiary diagnostic laboratories,” CNP said.
Olatunji said members of the CNP had been playing leading roles in case identification, case management and development of guidelines and protocol for infection prevention and control of COVID-19. CNP also called for the adoption of a more innovative and quicker diagnostic approach as against the NCDC recommended Real Time Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) being used at the moment. The statement also said that CNP was concerned about a possible abuse of Chloroquine arising from its purported usefulness in treating COVID-19 infection.
According to CNP, although some evidence was emerging about chloroquine efficacy, there was need for caution against inappropriate use of Chloroquine due to its damaging effect to the eye and interference with the functioning of the heart.
World Health Organisation (WHO) statistics said that over 400,000 people had been infected, by Coronavirus, leaving more than 18,000 of them dead. In addition, the economic fallout in economies across the globe both developed and developing had been enormous.
However, CNP said there was a cheering news as the disease had shown about 95% survival rate.
It said there was therefore no need to panic or get confused or over-react, adding that people should keep to all preventive and protective instructions – washing hands frequently with soap and water or use alcohol-based hand sanitizer if soap and water weren’t available.
It advised people not to touch their eyes, nose or mouth with unwashed hands and to avoid close contact with people who were sick, sneezing or coughing.
