NCDC Reviews Community Case Definition for COVID-19

Femi Ashekun/

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has released a revised community case definition for COVID-19 in the country.

Community case definition lists the criteria by which a person can be regarded as a suspected or probable COVID-19 case.

It also determines the eligibility of an individual for COVID-19 testing.

The agency released the revised case definition via a statement published on its website today.

Under the new guideline, NCDC describes a suspected case as “anyone with cough and/or fever (or history of fever in the last two weeks)” combined with one or more of the under-listed symptoms.

The symptoms include: shivering /shaking (chills), body pain, headache, sore throat, recent loss of taste or smell, difficulty in breathing/shortness of breath, diarrhea/abdominal pain, runny nose/catarrh and fatigue (tiredness).

On the hand, the agency describes a probable case of COVID-19 as any
person that presented with any of the symptoms listed above in the last
two weeks and died without a
confirmatory COVID-19 test.