187 new COVID-19 cases recorded as FG calls for more surveillance

Nigeria has recorded 187 fresh cases of the coronavirus, according to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control.

This is even as the Federal Government called for more surveillance in the country to prevent a surge of the virus.

In NCDC’s latest figures released on Tuesday night, the new infections were recorded in 12 states of the federation and the FCT.

They are Lagos – 74, Plateau and Rivers – 25, Gombe and FCT – 19, Osun – 10, Kaduna – 5, Borno – 3, Ogun and Katsina – 2, Nasarawa, Bayelsa and Edo – 1.

Following this development, the total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the country now stands at 58,647 with 49,937 successfully treated so far.

However, there was no fresh case of death within the past 24 hours as those that have succumbed to the virus is still 1,111.

Worried of a possible spike in the number of infections in Nigeria, the Minister of Health, Osagie Ehanire called for more surveillance.

He made this call earlier today during a briefing by the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 on Tuesday in Abuja.

As business and schools begin to open and as travels begin to pick up, we fear that we may have a surge in the number of cases unless we scale up surveillance and review our response plan to integrate new ways to deal with the disease,” he said.

“In line with this, the Nigeria Institute of Medical Research has developed a molecular test for COVID-19 that can give results in less than 40 minutes. It is the SARS-COV-2 Isothermal Molecular Assay (SIMA) which can be performed by low skilled personnel with minimum training.

“This test which is ten times cheaper than the PCR, can be deployed for point of care detection and surveillance.

“The technique which was developed by Dr. Chika Onwuamah will be deployed for use as soon as it is validated by the relevant agencies of the Ministry for specificity and Sensitivity.”

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