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Fred Itua, Abuja
As the country continues to witness an increase in the number of COVID-19 cases, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Administration, reassured that it was fully prepared to contain spread in Abuja.
Data from the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) on Sunday night indicated that Abuja had 141 confirmed COVID-19 cases, 103 active cases, 35 discharged patients and three deaths.
Director, FCT Public Health Department, Dr. Josephine Okechukwu, told Daily Sun that cases in Abuja were expected to rise in the coming days, but assured that the Administration was ready to manage the explosion.
She said one month after the first case was recorded in Abuja, about 3,000 tests have been conducted, representing a paltry 0.09 per cent of the population in the FCT. According to the United Nations, the estimated population of FCT currently stands at 3,278,000.
Dr. Okechukwu revealed that 95 per cent of the over 140 cases so far recorded in Abuja, occurred in Abuja municipal, while the other five per cent occurred in the other five area councils.
“Anywhere you have a pandemic, there is bound to be a community transmission. It usually happens in places where you have a lot of people living together. Right now in Abuja, there is an ongoing community transmission. We have identified about nine communities.
“We have cases coming up that we have identified in four other communities. We are going from community to community to test. That’s what we call Active Case Search. Before we went into communities to search, we looked at our data. Over 95 per cent of cases were identified in Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC). That was why we had to focus on AMAC and it’s suburbs to search for such. We will go to other area councils. But for now, we are focusing on AMAC because that’s where we will likely find active cases. We are spreading to other area councils.
“So far, we have carried out over 3,000 tests in FCT. Right now, we have over 140 cases. We are seriously involved in contact tracing to search for COVID-19 in the FCT. We are doing that now to step the tide. When COVID-19 came, many residents thought it was for the rich who travelled out of the country. We have mopped up people who came into the country and we have managed them approximately. We also had to look for the domestic staff of these people. That is what informed the choice of going to places where these domestic staff reside.
“We are still at the early stage in the FCT. We are ready for the explosion of this disease in the FCT. We have gotten so many isolation centres. We have about 600 bed space even when we have less than 100 active cases. We are ready for the worst of it comes to that,” she said.
