COVID-19 RESULTS: NCDC replies Akwa Ibom govt, says this is no time to doubt, but time for action

The Director General of the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Dr. Chike Ihekweazu has lamented the rejection of the test results of the five confirmed COVID-19 disease cases in Akwa Ibom State by the state government.

He said “this is not the time to dispute and doubt especially within government but to come together. It is not the time to release press statements against other government bodies”.

It would be recalled that the state Commissioner of Health, Dr. Dominic Ukpong, had in a press statement on Thursday rejected the test results, citing disturbing irregularities in reporting them. He called for a repeat of the tests.

Ihekweazu, while reacting to the development during a press briefing by the Presidential Taskforce on COVID-19 in Abuja on Thursday, said there was no reason for Akwa Ibom to dispute the validity of the results.

Read also: Akwa Ibom govt rejects 5 positive COVID-19 test results, demands second round of tests

“I just read the press release of the Commissioner for Health in Akwa Ibom State, and I think it’s a little bit unfortunate because there was some delay in reporting the results to him.

“These tests were done at the Irrua Specialist Teaching Hospital. This is our oldest and most experienced lab in carrying out Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) diagnosis. So, there is no reason to dispute the validity of these results.

“We must focus on the challenge on our hands; every new case in a new state always leads to a little bit of anxiety and people need time to accept these results and what they are.

“But they are what they are and I have no reason to doubt the results coming out from any of our labs, especially the Irrua Specialist Teaching Hospital.

“After every positive case, we will retest anyway after three to four days because the only way you can know whether people are recovering or not is by retesting them. So, that will be done.

“This is not the time to dispute and doubt especially within government but to come together. It is not the time to release press statements against other government bodies.

“So, this is my appeal to every state. There is no reason why anyone would give results without verifying.

“We are working very hard to make sure that these results are correct; sometimes, we delay in releasing these results, and we get a lot of complaints of why the results are taking so long. It is because the tests are being repeated so that we can be very sure.

“But if there is one lab in Nigeria that I can almost be 100 per cent sure on the validity of their test, of course, there can always be a mistake, but to have mistakes in five results in a lab like Irrua Specialist Teaching Hospital, will be very unlikely.

“I would like to call on everyone to have confidence in what we are doing. Irrua Specialist Teaching Hospital is not an NCDC-owned lab, but one that we support to make sure that the testing is done appropriately”, Ihekweazu said.

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