The Nigeria’s Minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire has said that so far, the most positive cases COVID19 virus are those coming from the United Kingdom.
“Because of the very large volume of travellers from the UK, we also have the most positive COVID-19 virus coming from the UK too.”
Dr. Enahire, who was answering questions on a Channels television programme yesterday, December 5, admitted that a large number of outbound Nigerian passengers are testing positive abroad despite testing negative in Nigeria, attributing it to fake test results being presented by such passengers.
The minister said that the government had tightened its mechanism for spotting fake results and vaccination cards.
He said that the development is not peculiar to Nigeria, saying that most of the inbound passengers that tested positive in Nigeria are actually from the UK.
The Minister, speaking on the possibility of prosecuting anyone with fake vaccination certificate or test result, said that the normal procedure is to quarantine such people before handing them over to the police.
He said however that he never followed up to know what happened to such people
Meanwhile, more inbound passengers are testing positive to COVID-19, an analysis of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control’s weekly situation report has shown.
The report obtained from the NCDC website on Sunday indicated that positivity rate among inbound travellers had increased by 74.6 per cent.
It was also gathered that 48 out of the 94 test centres for inbound persons of interest had not sent in reports of persons tested for three weeks.
According to the NCDC, in its latest situation report, a total of 17 inbound passengers tested positive between November 15 and November 21.
It however added that between November 22 and November 28, a total of 67 passengers tested positive signifying a 74.6 per cent increase.