Covid-19: Discharge Patients After They Test Negative Once – NCDC Give New Directive

Contrarily to initial practice, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has resolved to discharge COVID-19 patients after they test negative once.

Before now, the Commission only release patients to go after they must have tested negative to COVID-19 twice.

The Commission said it has reviewed its testing strategy for COVID-19 regarding the management of confirmed cases according to new guidelines from te World Health Organisation(WHO)

Emeka Oguanuo, spokesperson of the NCDC, confirmed the revision to news6 on Wednesday, saying the agency will soon publish the new guidelines with further details.

So far, Nigeria has recorded 4,787 cases of COVID-19, 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 revision, but the agency has repeatedly said its response to the pandemic is guided by the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) recommendations.