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CORONAVIRUS: NCDC tracking 12,000 contacts nationwide
To curb the spread of the coronavirus, the federal government announced Friday that about 12,000 contacts were being traced for sample and testing.
The Director General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu who spoke at the daily Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 briefing in Abuja, said Nigerians must learn to refrain from stigmatising infected persons.
“We are at the beginning of a journey and until we have a vaccine, we will need to learn to live with COVID-19 in our country. If we start stigmatising each other, I don’t know where to stop because the same group stigmatising one group will end up being infected tomorrow.
“In terms of the number of contact tracing, every day there are new cases and new contacts but cumulatively, there are 12,000 contacts across the country.”
Read also: Adamawa govt confirms two fresh COVID-19 cases
He noted, “We are driven by evidence and if we see increasing transmission in the market, we will go to that market but we are not going to set up a stand in every market across Nigeria to collect samples. We look at the date to make decision but if we have to go to the market, we will do that exactly.”
Mr Ihekweazu said that the centre has conducted 2,000 samples on Thursday across the country, the highest so far.
By Oluwakemi Adelagun…
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