Nigerians Tested For COVID-19 Less Than 1.3m – FG

BY PATIENCE IVIE IHEJIRIKA, Abuja

The federal government has said the 1.3million COVID-19 tests conducted so far in the country may not reflect the true number of people who have been tested.

Secretary to the government of the federation (SGF) and chairman of Presidential Task Force on COVID 19 Boss Mustapha stated this on yesterday at a sensitisation meeting on COVID-19 vaccine with leaders of the Christian Association of Nigeria and scholars in Abuja.

He said some people, including himself, had done COVID-19 test more than once and the repeated tests are recorded as part of the 1.3million tests conducted in the country.

“The figure we have may not truly reflect what we have on ground. So, we have not tested 1.3 million,” he said.

The PTF chairman noted that Nigeria, like the rest of the world, is now experiencing a more virulent second wave which has increased the number of COVID-19-related deaths from 1,173 on November 29, 2020 to 1,578 on January 31, 2021, an increase of 34 per cent.

He said the arrival of vaccines has however given hope to humanity that a solution had been found.

“This does not however mean that the NPIs would be discarded. Going forward it shall be NPIs + vaccines for everyone to completely get over the pandemic”, he said.

Speaking further, he said, “While we continue to push the frontiers of compliance with the NPIs through all means including the collaboration with the sub-national entities, faith based organisations, community engagement and through legal instruments such as the recently issued
Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) Health Protection Regulations 2021, the role of the Church in the escalation of the awareness on COVID-19, vaccines and minimisation of resistance and hesitancy to it, can never be over-emphasised.”

President of the Christian Association of Nigerian (CAN), Rev Samson Ayokunle, while commending the efforts of the PTF and other relevant…