Chikwe Ihekweazu, Director-General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), has said that no state in the country is COVID-19 free.
Ihekweazu announced this on Monday, June 22 while speaking at the daily briefing of the presidential task force in Abuja.
Reacting to claims that some states are free of the virus, the DG said;
No single state is COVID-19-free. No country in the world, even New Zealand that is an island state is still having new cases after a period of not having new cases.
Ihekweazu stated that a state can only claim being COVID-19 free when it is testing samples and have the effective tool to fight the disease.
He stressed that;
No state in Nigeria is COVID-19 free. No country in the world is COVID-19 free. That is why we have to keep doing this work we are doing, testing people, finding out if they have it. Even if some of us are lucky and get away with having asymptomatic infections, we have to test more.
The DG added;
We can only talk about a state being disease-free when we have an effective tool to fight the disease. That will come when we have a vaccine. Until then, there is no easy way to say this.
We have to keep pushing for these preventive measures. We have to develop our laboratory capability to test. Either you start testing now or you start testing later. But eventually, we will all test. That is for sure.
In Nigeria, Cross Rivers is the only state where no case of COVID-19 has been officially confirmed,
