The Nigeria Center for Disease Control, NCDC says the Akwa Ibom State Government was right in insisting that only 16 COVID-19 cases were confirmed in the state.
The Center maintained that it had erroneously repeated a sample test, which resulted in the 17 cases it earlier recorded for the state.
The apology by NCDC in their latest update on Saturday morning regreted the error and affirmed that Akwa Ibom had only 16 confirmed cases.
According to NCDC, “On the 14th of May, 4 cases reported from Plateau and 1 case from Akwa Ibom, were repeat cases.
”Therefore, Plateau has a total of 21 cases and Akwa Ibom has a total of 16 cases.
”We apologise to the State Governments for the error and remain committed to ensuring accurate reporting.”
The state Commissioner for Health, Dr. Dominic Ukpong had told journalists few days ago that the number of COVID-19 confirmed cases in Akwa Ibom was slightly lower than the figure published by NCDC.
Widespread criticism and media attacks had trailed his comment, with most people alleging that the state government was trying to conceal the true situation in the state.
However the correction by NCDC has further affirmed the sincerity and commitment of Governor Udom Emmanuel to tackle the pandemic and rid the state of the dreaded virus.
Only two weeks ago, the NCDC had adjudged the state as a high flyer in contact tracing, with 99.1 percent success being recorded.
Akwa Ibom state first had confirmed cases of five persons suffering from the diseases on April 1, 2020 but following an aggressive process of contact tracing and quality health care delivery, the state has not witnessed an alarming rate of infections.