The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, NCDC, has appealed to the 36 states and Federal Capital Territory to intensify sample collection and contact tracing of Coronavirus (COVID-19) in the country.
The Head of Department, Surveillance and Epidemiology Department, NCDC, Elsie Ilori, made the call on Monday in Abuja at the 62nd joint Presidential Tasks Force Briefing on COVID-19.
Ilori said that the drastic decline in sample collection and contact tracing for COVID-19 was not limited to states with few numbers of cases, but included states with the highest number of infection.
She stated that a total of 32 states recorded poor sample collection — below 1,000 in August — as against seven states in July.
Ilori said that the center’s priority since the beginning of the outbreak had been to promptly detect, trace, and isolate cases of COVID-19 to prevent further spread of the virus.
“However, in a country of about 200million people across 774 LGAs, this is resource-intensive and rigorous.
“In many ways, we have intensified surveillance activities to not only understand the epidemiology of COVID-19 within our context, but help us respond accordingly.
“This also feed into the guidelines and advisories that we develop,” the NCDC head of Surveillance and Epidemiology said.
She stated that a few years ago, the centre began the gradual roll out of a digital surveillance tool called SORMAS, in Nigeria.
“SORMAS allows for real time case-based surveillance from state health facilities and LGAs, to NCDC. We have leveraged this for previous disease outbreaks in the country and now COVID-19.
“Each time a new case is recorded from any part of the country on SORMAS, we can immediately view this at the National Emergency Operations Centre where we have a dashboard for monitoring.
“Using SORMAS, at a glance, we can view the number of cases and specific indicators for each case- their symptoms, current status, demographic factors, etc.
“This allows for a harmonised overview of COVID-19 data and key attributes across the country.
“This also forms part of the information published in our COVID-19 daily situation report,” she stated.
Ilori said that since the beginning of the response, NCDC had rapidly scaled up the deployment of SORMAS across the country and it was being used in state facilities and laboratories nationwide.
“In addition, contact tracing is one of the core surveillance activities that we have employed in this response.
“This entails following-up on people who may have been in contact with a confirmed case of COVID-19 to ensure that they have not been infected too.
“For this response, NCDC has trained state teams on improving surveillance including case definition, investigation and reporting,” she explained.
Ilori, however, said that the centre had supported states to engage SORMAS data clerks as well as volunteers to aid surveillance activities in local government areas.
“We are also grateful for the support from Africa CDC for the engagement of 200 community health workers to enhance contact tracing activities,” she said.
In addition, Ilori said that the NCDC had continued to develop and update existing guidelines as knowledge on the disease evolved.
She explained that recently, the agency published and shared with states, “Strategies to Improve Surveillance for COVID-19”. This, she said, could be accessed via covid19.ncdc.gov.ng.
“This is a guiding document that helps states’ teams to be more strategic in the implementation of activities to improve the overall response to COVID-19.
“To date, preventive measures that have been recommended have been informed by the epidemiological data on COVID-19 in Nigeria as well as observable trends across the country,” she noted.
The NCDC official urged Nigerians to support state and national efforts to curb the disease.
“This includes adhering to preventive measures such as the use of face masks, getting tested if you are showing symptoms of COVID-19 and spreading information only from official channels,” she advised.
