Covid-19: No more room in isolation centres; NCDC rushes out recovering patients

Henceforth, Covid-19 patients recovering in Lagos won’t undergo two tests again to confirm their recovery.

No fewer than 13 of the 662 recoveries have been discharged based n this latest guideline

Lagos Ministry of Health gave the update in a press conference on Thursday.

“The practice of using one negative tests to discharge patients is something that we accept and we adopt,” Prof. Akin Abayomi, health commissioner.

“By the time you get one negative, there is a chance that a day or two later, you may become positive again because the virus has managed to escape your immune system and start secreting itself in very small quantity. And then maybe a week later you clear it finally.”

His statement followed the earlier one by NCDC boss Chikwe Ihekweazu.

“On our discharge criteria, we changed it from two tests – 24 to 48 hours apart to a single negative test,” he said. “The reason is that most of our cases that tested negative also tested negative for the second time. Of course, there will be some exceptions.”

“Given the pressure we have on bed spaces especially in Lagos, Kano, and the FCT, we made a pragmatic decision to move to one negative test sufficient to discharge people,” he said.