Coronavirus: 812 Health Workers Infected — PTF

Forum 3 years ago

Coronavirus: 812 Health Workers Infected — PTF

No fewer than 812 health workers, including 29 staff of Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, NCDC, on the frontline in the fight against

COVID-19 have tested positive for the virus.

The Director-General of NCDC, Dr. Chikwe Iheakwazu, disclosed this at the daily briefing of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19.

“We have had 812 health workers infected. They are not just numbers. 29 of these work with NCDC. They are people I know. Eight of them right now are in Idu Treatment Centre. They are people and they matter.

“Crossing that 10,000 mark was quite a significant event. Every night, we work to bring out those numbers, sometimes numbers begin to feel like what they are; you forget that there are people behind each number.

‘’So, it is very important for us to remember that these are people. At NCDC, we engage with these people every day.

“At the moment 75 per cent of people have unknown sources of their illness. It means community transmission is happening. This is normal of a respiratory virus which 80 per cent of people are asymptomatic.

“We now have the third-highest number of confirmed cases on the continent, after South Africa and Egypt. We have increased our testing capacity. We have now tested over 65,000 samples. 60 percent of our cases are in 20 local government areas.”