The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) Thursday unveiled new guidelines for the treatment of COVID-19 patients, which will quicken their discharge from isolation and treatment centres.

Speaking yesterday in Abuja during the media briefing by the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19, the Director-General of NCDC, Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu, said the centre had revised the COVID-19 case management guidelines in line with recent recommendations of the WHO.

He said that 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.

WHO had temporarily halted the clinical trials for the use of Hydroxychloroquine for treatment of patients after a report in a health magazine linked the drug to cases of rising mortality rates and toxicity in patients.

Yesterday, the committee met and based on the review of available mortality data regarding the use of Hydroxyl therapy for the treatment of COVID-19 patients and considering information from the ongoing trials in the United Kingdom and also the recovery time, where the data safety committee of that trial also reviewed the data, the members of the committee agreed that there was no cogent reason as to recommend the modification of the protocol and they advised that the trials should be continued as planned.