Nigeria: COVID-19 Patients Without Symptoms To Be Discharged After 14 Days - NCDC

PATIENTS who stop showing Coronavirus symptoms —fever and respiratory, will be discharged without waiting for a laboratory negative test.

Besides, those who fail to show symptoms after testing positive will be discharged 14 days after, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) said on Thursday while unveiling the new treatment protocols.

The NCDC said this followed new data from Singapore that showed that RNA detected beyond 10 days is no longer infectious as no viable virus is grown by a viral culture. Such patients will be asked to go home but advised to continue self-isolation one week after discharge.

Director-General of NCDC Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu, who spoke at the daily briefing of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19, in Abuja, said: “There have been new science emerging about the duration of infectivity of individual patients. It led to the WHO issuing new clinical guidelines.

“We then convened colleagues across our organisation, the department of hospital services of the Federal Ministry of Health, as well as other colleagues with whom we work, to review our guidelines and issue new guidelines for the country, and of course adapting it to local circumstances.

“The key thing is that the management of COVID-19 will be made primarily supportive; we don’t have any treatment so far that has any proven impact on morbidity.

“One of the major changes that have happened is the discharge criteria. While these guidelines are obviously and primarily targeted at physicians managing patients, it is important that patients and people know. There are two groups of patients – symptomatic and asymptomatic patients.

Native Reporters