COVID-19: Shortage of Bed Space, Reagents Hit Lagos

Ololade Adeyanju/

The Nigeria Center for Disease Control (NCDC) says it is currently “struggling” for bed spaces for the treatment of COVID-19 patients in Lagos State which has the highest number of persons infected with COVID-19 in Nigeria.

Similarly, the Lagos State government disclosed that its efforts at testing as much people as possible for COVID-19 was being hampered by shortage of reagents needed for conducting the molecular test.

There are 947 confirmed COVID-19 cases in Lagos out of which 187 have been discharged after recovering from the disease.

Speaking at the briefing of the presidential task force on COVID-19 in Abuja, today, Director-General of NCDC, Chikwe Ihekweazu, said efforts are being made to change strategy in order not to allow the inadequate bed spaces affect the fight against coronavirus.

He said one of the strategies being considered is home management of cases in a situation where patients are able to provide a separate room for isolation in their residences.

“Lagos is the only place where we are struggling with bed spaces for now. We will always tells Nigerians the truth. We are struggling with bed spaces in Lagos for now,” he said.

The isolation centers in Lagos are at the Infectious Disease Hospital, Yaba, Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) and Onikan Isolation Centre located inside the Onikan Stadium.

Ihekweazu also said the agency has adopted a new measure to make testing more effective, appealing to Nigerians for support.

“We are in the process of scaling up testing across the country and the key component that has changed in this is that in Lagos, Abuja and Kano, instead of waiting for people to call us, we are now going to where the patients are.

“So we have setup specific testing locations and of course in collaboration and under the leadership of the state in these three states to increase the samples collected from cases that actually do meet the case definition,” the NCDC boss said.

Also speaking on a breakfast programme, This Morning on TVC, today, commissioner for health, Prof. Akin Abayomi, said the state has a backlog of about 2000 test samples due to shortage of reagents.

Abayomi explained that the situation was not peculiar to the state as there is currently a global shortage of reagents with every country trying to lay their hands on the available stock.

Abayomi also said the decision to ease the current lockdown in the state is to strike a balance between the economic sustainability of the citizens and public health requirements.

“As you know, a lot of people survive on their daily earnings. For this category of people, they need to go out daily to make a living. So, if you keep the economy locked down for too long, the issue of malnutrition could set in. We also have to consider the issue of security. So, easing the lockdown is necessary to strike a balance,” Abayomi said.

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