How Curfew Will Help Nigeria Defeat Coronavirus – NCDC

The Nigeria Centre For Disease Control (NCDC) has said the curfew imposed on three States in the country on Sunday by President Muhammadu Buhari would help Nigeria get ahead of the novel Coronavirus, otherwise known as COVID-19.

Director-General of NCDC, Chikwe Iheweazu stated this on Monday during an interview on Channels TV Sunrise Daily, while reacting to the address of Buhari.

Buhari had in an address to the nation over the disease, ordered the restriction of movements into and out of Abuja, Lagos and Ogun States for 14 days, in a measure to contain the spread of the pandemic.

According to Ihekweazu, though it was a tough decision to restrict movements in the affected states, especially Lagos and Abuja, the curfew was to ease the burden on health workers monitoring those suspected to have had contact with confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the country.

“Every time we have a new case, we add about 50 to 60 contacts that we then have to follow every single day for 14 days.

“We can’t do this if we don’t have access to these cases, so this is really one of the reasons why Mr President took this very difficult decision and it is not just to stop movement.

“It is to enable us and our team, Lagos State team, FCT team to reach the contacts, keep them at home, make sure they are supported and see whether we can really use this time to buy some time to get ahead of the case and ultimately, we will see that curve start going down,” an optimistic Ihekweazu explained.

He said the NCDC is following no fewer than 6,000 people suspected to have had contact with the 111 confirmed cases of coronavirus (COVID-19) in the country.