Nigeria’s desperate battle to defeat the COVID-19 has been made more complex with delays in turning out test results.
This has undermined the necessity for early isolation of persons who may have tested positive while also delaying confirmation results for those who have gone through a period of treatment
AIT.LIVE met John, (not his real name) who was tested for COVID-19 by officials of the Nigeria centre for disease control, ncdc along with his friends.
He was told that his test result will be out within two days. But he was not notified until over a week after. His test came out positive.
Meanwhile within the waiting period for his test result, john was not on isolation as he had gone back to his family, putting them at risk of exposure.
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Such is the nature of complaints received by the media about delays in covid-19 test results.
The situation is the same for those already admitted to treatment centres where some are dealing with a frustrating wait as they are yet to be notified of their recovery test results.
That is the case of the patients at the covid-19 treatment centres in the Federal Capital Territory. Those who spoke with AIT.Live say they are tired and want to go home. They complained about staying at the centre for 21 days yet no result after series of test.
Turn around time for results is now a challenge in the fight against covid-19. At the onset it took at most 72 hours for a patient’s results to be out
But now a patient gets to wait for more than a week before getting the result. A situation that is likely to hamper the fight against COVID-19. One of the patients spoke about how it took a week after several calls to get the result.
We put a call through to the fct epidemiologist to ascertain the true position of these allegations. She insists that her job is to notify persons whose results are ready and that is done without delay. She explains that anybody who is yet to be notified of his or her result simply means it has not been released from the laboratory
At one of the presidential task force briefings the ncdc director-general admitted that there are lapses in the testing process.
He says to address this, the nigerian government is setting up a laboratory system management to carter for the emerging complaints.
With more cases added each day, it is not clear how soon the gaps in the management of the COVID-19 in nigeria will be resolved
(Editor: Terverr Tyav)
