Type of Intervention: Executive Order, New Tool / Service / Body, Regulation
Sectors Involved: Health
Level of Jurisdiction: National
Lead People/Agency: Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19 made the decision with the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) of the policy in line with a SIngapore study that found that patients were not infectious after 14 days.
The implementation will be by the state governments that run the isolation centres in their respective state.
Overview: Change in discharge criteria of COVID 19 patients. The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) unveiled new guidelines for the treatment of COVID-19 patients, which will quicken their discharge from isolation and treatment centres.
Under the new guidelines, which provide that a negative test will no longer be required to discharge a patient, symptomatic ones can be discharged at least 10 days after symptoms onset and at least three days without symptoms.
For asymptomatic patients, they can be allowed to go home 14 days after their first positive test.
Full details here: https://www.thisdaylive.com/index.php/2020/06/05/ncdc-issues-new-guidelines-on-discharge-of-covid-19-patients/
Type of Justification: Learning from other jurisdictions, Scientific Evidence (e.g. academic paper, report)
Source of Evidence or Justification: International – academic
Evidence/Justification: Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu said that the NCDC held a review meeting with various case management teams in the Ministry of Health and came up with new guidelines for discharging the patients. He explained: “There has been new scientific evidence emerging about the duration of infectivity of individual patients. It led to the WHO issuing new clinical guidelines.
“We then convened colleagues across our organisation, the department of hospital services of the Federal Ministry of Health, as well as other colleagues with whom we work, to review our guidelines and issue new guidelines for the country and of course adapting it to local circumstances.