Lagos State Commissioner for Health, Prof. Akin Abayomi, said on Tuesday that the state is escalating the molecular testing capacity to be able to carry more tests in a day.
“We still have an excess testing capacity, we have three reference laboratories in Lagos, each of those facilities is testing up to 50 per day, so we have about 150 tests per day. We are increasing that capacity by the day, hopefully, we will be able to get to 200 and so on.”
Abayomi said the molecular test laboratories are more effective and less time-consuming in addition to 100 per cent accurate results. He said the state is ahead of the outbreak while building more capacity.
“Lagos State has capacity at the moment and not under any stress in terms of access to Personal Protection Equipment or testing capacities,” he said.
According to him,the state has 81 cases with eight recoveries and no death. He said 66 cases are due for transmission within Lagos and 15 cases came from a vessel that was manoeuvring the coasts of Lagos doing oil and gas work.
“Most of the patients are experiencing a mild to moderate degree of the illness, no patient requires ventilation at the moment.
“I will estimate that about 33 of the 66 are mild, about 33 are showing moderate diseases characterised by severe fever, some coughing, and general body pain,” he said.
When asked if the number of testing facilities and health practitioners is commensurate with the population in the state, the commissioner said the strategies being deployed by the state are effective to combat it and there is no shortage of health workers at the moment.
“Lagos has 27 general hospitals and almost 300 health practitioners and a teaching hospital. We are not struggling at the moment, we have health professionals and volunteers.”
He said about 50 to 60 professionals are being trained daily, including health practitioners who have gone into voluntary retirement and are coming back.
“The strategies we are deploying in Lagos is effective, we are only seeing between six and 10 positive cases in a day, that is a very slow rate of increase compared to what we see in Europe and other countries where the increase is by hundreds and thousands.”
The commissioner said if people continue to practice social distancing, a flattening of the virus curve would be achieved in no time.
“The survival rate of coronavirus in Lagos is 100 per cent, with eight discharged patients, zero death, and the stable condition of other patients”, he said.
