By Omeiza Ajayi – Abuja

The Federal Government has again expressed concerns over the low rate of collection of Covid-19 test samples, saying it would soon commission a study to examine the development.

Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire disclosed this during Monday’s briefing of the Presidential Taskforce PTF on Covid-19.

He said Nigeria is currently having more cases of patients discharged than admitted, but said it was not a license to become complacent.

Ehanire said; “In the past 24 hours, we recorded just 138 COVID-19 positive cases in Nigeria, one of the lowest numbers in many months, giving a total of 53,865 positive cases out of 403,347 tests conducted as of August 31, 2020.  In the same 24 hour period, 199 persons were discharged from the hospital, giving us a total successful treatment of 41,513 patients.

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“We are beginning to see a situation where the number of those treated and discharged exceeds the number of positive cases detected. While these figures may seem reassuring, they may be deceptive, and we cannot assume that the curve is flattening, since we are yet to perfect due diligence on our side.

“Testing has, for example, dropped quite significantly, due to reduced sample collection across many States, for reasons that are not clear in all cases. One State, for example, tested over 35 thousand in July and just under 20 thousand in August, while another State dropped from 23 thousand in July to just under 4 thousand in August.

“These are just examples that show that there is more work to do and many more challenges ahead. There is reason to worry that in States facing an election, campaign activities cause caution to be thrown to the wind and covid19 infection increases dramatically, while testing may decline due to frustration.

“I urge authorities in these States to remember the risks of crowding and ensure that government workers can do their work unhindered. I shall commission a study group of the Ministerial Experts Advisory Committee to begin processes to examine this development and bring up new knowledge which can guide response or may have an implication on government decision making”.

Community centres

He said the government is still working on plans for Community Support Centers in small towns and rural areas.

The centre would be to isolate persons who test positive, but risk infecting others due to the nature of their living conditions, or the vulnerable who live among infected groups, are removed for a while, for their safety, till the risk is gone.

He said as Nigeria strives to bring COVID-19 under control, stakehokders must endeavor to keep an eye on other diseases that contribute to mortality,  especially of women and children in Nigeria.

“Malaria is one such example, for which we continue to strengthen routine services in our primary health care facilities.

“This morning, we disseminated the report of 2018 Malaria Therapeutic Efficacy Studies (TES) for three artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACT), which were tested in Enugu, Kano, and the Plateau States.

“These studies are conducted at the interval, to detect drug resistance to the malaria parasite, early enough to have a treatment that works. The findings from the study show the three ACTs to be efficacious against uncomplicated malaria, though there have been reports of malaria parasite resistance to Artemisinin in some Asian countries.

“No resistance was observed in studies done in Nigeria. It is wise to test all fever cases and be sure it is malaria, and to treat only confirmed cases with Artemisinin Combination Therapies (ACTs)”, he stated.

Chairman of the Taskforce and Secretary to the Government of the Federation SGF, Mr Boss Mustapha said the PTF will continue to monitor developments all over Africa even as the nation prepares to open up the international air space for flights.

He said; “The PTF has also observed that from the point the global numbers entered the 20th million, growth in cases has been on the average of a million cases every 4-5 days. This is a trend that deserves a lot of attention and the PTF is doing that.

“On a very good note, the last seven days have shown a consistently greater number of discharges than confirmed cases. Particularly, we note with delight, the report that Prof. Akin Abayomi, the Lagos State Commissioner for Health, like many other Nigerians, has recovered from the infection. The PTF congratulates all those that have recovered and urges them to tell their stories.

He recalled how at the outbreak of the pandemic, it was predicted that the African continent – with its weak health infrastructure and propensity to high disease burden – would be the worst hit.

Mustapha quoted a recent publication by the Weekly Science Review has indicated that despite having 17% of the global population, Africa has accounted for just 5% of global confirmed COVID-19 cases and 3% of deaths.

“Furthermore, a recent study by a group of African countries, in East Africa indicates that Africa has weathered the storm of the pandemic with a death ratio of 1:10000 persons at a total of 23,000 so far.

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“According to the study, far more Africans have been infected with the virus and are now resistant to it for reasons such as more exposure to variants of the coronavirus and regular exposure to malaria and other infectious diseases, which prime the African Immune system to fight new pathogens.

“The PTF is however studying the manifestation of the virus in Nigeria and in other countries and continents in order to understand nature.

“This should ordinarily give us encouragement that we are winning the war against the COVID-19 pandemic but unfortunately, the science, data, and experience from other parts of the world indicate that such data should be viewed with extreme caution, as it is prone to be very deceptive and could be misleading if we let down our guards and be influenced to deviate from our strategy of cautious optimism that has brought Nigeria this far”.

According to the SGF, the World Health Organization WHO has published a draft landscape of the COVID-19 candidate vaccines, explaining that as of 28th August 2020 a total 173 candidate vaccines are under evaluation, of which 33 are under clinical evaluation (8 at phase 3 trials) and 143 candidate vaccines in pre-clinical evaluation​

Vanguard