Nigerian health officials accused of sending anyone with a fever to isolation centres as Covid-19 patient

GOVERNMENT officials have expressed concern at the way Nigerian health professionals are going about collating data on coronavirus patients claiming that anyone with a fever is now being listed as having the virus.

With the number of people infected by the virus in Nigeria growing on a daily basis, health ministers, the leaders of the National Assembly and the director-general of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) have been interfacing to find a common solution to the menace. There are currently 442 people affected by the virus in Nigeria, of which 13 have died.

Lagos State has been the epicentre of the virus accounting for over 50% of cases and as such its government has been very proactive in addressing the issue by opening test centres, isolation units and introducing stay-at-home orders. However, it now appears that the official statistics being offered may not be accurate as there are question marks over the testing methods being used.

According to recent findings, health officials have resorted to screening patients with high temperatures and typhoid fever and designating them as coronavirus positive. Apparently, some of these people have been sent to isolation centres, often without adequate food and medical care.

It is also believed that some state governors are fraudulently milking the federal government's Covid-19 palliative programme. The Central Bank of Nigeria has created a N50bn intervention fund and reports from some states indicate that governors are falsely boosting the number of patients in their states to gain access to these funds.

There are now fears that with this shambolic approach, Nigeria could be in big trouble if coronavirus does hit the country in a big way. On top of this, Nigeria lacks the productive capacity to sustain a lockdown for any significant period of time as it lacks the food stocks, medical equipment or pharmaceutical drugs required for such course of action.