No fewer than 812 health workers have contracted COVID-19 nationwide, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control [NCDC] has said.

Speaking at the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 briefing in Abuja on Tuesday the NCDC said 29 of them were employees of the centre.

The NCDC Director-General, Dr Chikew Ihekweazu, explained that when a new lab was activated, it was more than just a number, saying it represented a collective effort of a country trying to respond to a public health emergency.

According to him, every new lab activated means that equipment has been procured, people have been trained, people have travelled to make sure this happened, these governments have invested.

“We’ve deployed 37 rapid response teams, with over 450 people that have left homes for weeks on end supporting the response across the country. These are not just numbers. They are people that have left their families and are working hard to make sure things get better.

“The 812 health care workers infected were not just numbers. Twenty-nine of these (health professionals) work for the NCDC. They are people I know that have families, wives and children.

“About eight of them, right now, are in the Idu treatment centre. We’ve distributed over 40,000 pieces of complete PPEs and we continue to do this. By this weekend, a new consignment will be going out to every state and every FMC in the country,” the NCDC DG said.

He further stated that Nigeria had the third-highest number of cases in Africa, after South Africa and Egypt.

Ihekweazu said,

“It means there is an added responsibility for us to work harder every day. We’ve increased our testing capacity. We’ve now tested over 65,000 samples and increased our lab network to 30, having just activated a lab in Bauchi and a new one in Abuja.”