20 WASSCE Candidates Test Positive for COVID-19 in Bayelsa

Femi Ashekun/

Bayelsa State government has disclosed that 20 students writing the ongoing West African Senior School Certificate Examinations (WASSCE) in the state had tested positive for COVID-19.

This was disclosed by the Permanent Secretary, in the state ministry of health, Inodu Apoku.

Apoku said the 20 positive cases were among 600 candidates writing the examination in the state that were screened, according to This Day newspaper.

WASSCE is a terminal examination for secondary school students in Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, The Gambia, and Liberia. It has been rescheduled twice by the regulatoory body, the West African Examination Council (WAEC), because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Apoku said it was the safety measures put in place to check the spread of the disease that aided the discovery of the 20 positive cases.

He however did not say if the students will write the exams in the isolation centres.

PUNCH newspaper also reported yesterday that seven students writing WASSCE in Gombe State had tested positive for COVID-19, quoting the health commissioner, Habu Dahiru.

The newspaper had earlier reported that an unnamed student who tested positive for the virus, began his WASSCE from the Gombe State isolation centre on Monday.

Akwa Ibom State governor, Udom Emmanuel, also announced yesterday that a student writing WASSCE in the state had tested positive for the virus.

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