The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has mandated COVID-19 patients who recovers to be discharged after testing negative once for the deadly disease, as against multiple re-testing earlier being done.
According to a report sighted by Igbere TV on Wednesday, spokesperson of the NCDC, Emeka Oguanuo, who revealed this, said the agency will soon publish the new guidelines with further details.
Nigeria has so far recorded 4,787 cases of COVID-19 out of which 959 patients have recovered and have been discharged from isolation centres across the states.
But before getting discharged, NCDC initially required that patients must test negative at least twice for their health status to be confirmed.
It is not immediately clear the reason for the sudden revision, Igbere TV, however, gathered that it may be due to shortage of testing kits.
On April 30, the NCDC said it was struggling for bed spaces to admit COVID-19 patients in Lagos.
Speaking at the briefing of the presidential task force on COVID-19, Chikwe Ihekweazu, director-general of the NCDC, said efforts are being made to change strategy in order not to allow inadequate bed spaces to affect the fight against the coronavirus.
He also said no state in the country has enough bed space to admit COVID-19 cases.
