The Governor of Ebonyi State, David Umahi, on Monday, raised the alarm over the shortage of testing kits in the state’s designated isolation centres on COVID-19.
This came at a time when there is a sharp increase in the number of confirmed positive cases of COVID-19 in the state.
Cases in the state has risen to 33 as at Sunday night.
He, therefore, called on the federal government to quickly intervene, adding that the state cannot hold suspected cases in isolation above the 14 days directive, given by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, NCDC.
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Umahi, who spoke on Sunday night after an emergency meeting, stated that six of the positive confirmed cases have been discharged.
“The state had delays in getting kits from NCDC.
“They gave us some kits but the kits are not enough.
“It is difficult to hold people for 14 days without testing them.
“The federal government will have to intervene immediately about this.
“If they ask us to isolate these people from society, we should also have enough testing kits to follow the NCDC policies,” he explained.
But, despite the soaring cases in the state, Umahi assured that there was no community spread at the moment.
Also, he stated that Afikpo North LGA had the highest cases of nine, followed by Izzi with eight while Ishielu had six.
The governor, however, noted that 29 new cases were recorded between 26th of April to 24th of May.
“The cases were all the people traveling from Delta, Lagos, Imo, and sneaked into the state through the borders”, Umahi explained.