The federal government has defended its inability to carry out massive tests for coronavirus on Nigerians citing the need to prioritise those who are symptomatic of the pandemic.
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Nigeria ranks low in the league of countries carrying out coronavirus tests on her residents even in comparison with neighbouring Ghana who has tested 37,954 persons while the most populous back nation tested a paltry 5,000.
The federal government has come under fire for its failure to up its game and ensure massive testing.
Speaking at a briefing of the Presidential Taskforce on COVID-19 in Abuja yesterday, National Coordinator of the Taskforce, Dr Sani Aliyu, defended the government saying it deliberate refuse to cast its net wide and not due to absence of capacity.
Aliyu said: “There is no room for massive community testing for coronavirus. I would rather do a hundred tests and get 10 positives rather than do 1, 000 tests and get 10 positives. It is all about improving the efficiency of the tests.
‘’It is better to test persons that have symptoms because what we call the pre-test probability is higher. When we talk about incubation period, this is the period between when you get an infection and the time the symptoms happen. And the incubation period is when the virus multiplies in the body and it is not excreted.
”If you are in the incubation period, you will not be excreting the virus and the test is looking for the presence of the virus. Therefore, if you do the test during the incubation period which may range from between two, three days and 14 days, the test will be negative.
‘’In other words, you could still be in an incubation period and it will give you a false assurance that everything is alright. That is why we do not recommend doing the tests in the absence of symptoms.
Continued: ‘’The reason in some cases is that some people might be asymptomatic and still have a positive result, which is extremely rare. This is because a lot of people might have mild symptoms that you will not even notice. This is why we need to do the test at the right time in order to pick up the virus.
“So, we are not going to start doing massive testing in the communities. It will be inefficient, it will be expensive and it is not going to help us increase the number of positives.’’ Also speaking at the briefing, chairman of the Taskforce and Secretary to Government of the Federation, SGF, Boss Mustapha, said the Federal Government has recommended the use of face masks by Nigerians in order to reduce their susceptibility to infection by the virus.”
