As some countries around the world brace up for a possible second wave of COVID-19 infections, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has updated its guidelines in light of its latest discovery about the Coronavirus (COVID-19), which reveals that there is a possibility of the virus being transmitted by air, in addition to transmission through the droplets of an infected person. Director General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Chikwe Ihekweazu reiterated this point at the daily briefing of the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19 on Monday, July 13, stating that evidence from the agency’s studies supports this finding. He underscored that the mode of transmission of any virus is critical to defining a response strategy. To this end, he stated that prohibition of mass gatherings and gatherings of any nature in small spaces should be further strengthened.
Furthermore, Chairman of the PTF and Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha announced the suspension of all unnecessary travels by government officials, adding that government meetings should be conducted virtually, where there are more than four participants, till further notice. He also disclosed that the plan to improve COVID-19 testing, is to establish one sample collection centre in each Local government Area across the Federation. It will be recalled that the Federal Government recently launched a COVID-19 diagnostic kit developed by Nigerian scientists under the National Biotechnology Development Agency, which it stated would be available in commercial quantity, to scale up testing.