Technical Officer For Laboratory Strengthening, World Health Organization (WHO), Dr Dhamari Naidoo, has said that Coronavirus (COVID-19)’s current case fatality ratio was low at 2.3 percent, while 80 percent of cases are mild.
Naidoo said this while presenting a report on the epidemiological characteristics of COVID-19 at the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Journal Club Monthly Research Presentation, on Wednesday, February 19, 2020 in Abuja.
This month’s Journal Club Research Presentation was targeted at highlighting key facts and debunking myths on the dreaded COVID-19.
The Technical Officer said that there had been a high level of misinformation on COVID-19, especially on the social media, adding that Nigerians needed to be aware of credible sources of accurate information on COVID-19.
She advised Nigerians to visit ncdc.gov.ng and the Federal Ministry of Health website for recent and accurate information on the disease.
Naidoo noted that though COVID-19 had spread to some parts of the world, “we have seen a downward trend with no sustained transmission in affected countries”.
“There is still much to learn about the disease and how to respond effectively,” she said.
She added that Nigeria had a surveillance case definition to identify suspect cases of COVID-19.
“We now have four laboratories where the disease can be rapidly tested in the country.
“The centres are located at the National Reference Laboratory, Abuja, LUTH, Irrua Specialist Teaching Hospital, and the African Centre of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Diseases (ACEGID),” she said.
