IKEJA, Lagos, Nigeria – Lagos State Government has said that the index case of Coronavirus COVID-19 – the Italian- who has been receiving care at the Lagos Mainland Infectious Disease Hospital, Yaba has tested negative to the virus.
State Commissioner for Health, Prof. Akin Abayomi who disclosed this Thursday while giving updates on COVID19 in Lagos said that a confirmatory test would be carried out on the Italian index case before he is released into the community.
Said he, “I am happy to inform you that the index case has now cleared the virus, we will check him one more time and if he is negative, he would be discharged. Our second case as you would recall has been discharged while others receiving care at our biosecurity unit in Yaba are doing well ”.
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Meanwhile, Abayomi revealed that the State has recorded four more new confirmed cases of COVID19, bringing the total number of confirmed cases in the State to 11 out of which 9 are active cases; excluding the index case who has now tested negative and the second case who has been discharged.
According to him, the Ministry yesterday conducted 19 tests on suspected cases out of which four samples tested positive. He added that the four cases were among the contacts of the confirmed cases that was announced yesterday and other suspected cases the Ministry is following up.
Abayomi explained further that one of the cases is a contact from the third confirmed case who came into the country on the 13th March via the British airline flight BA 75. He added that the other cases include a female Nigerian who flew in from France via Istanbul on a Turkish Airline TK1830 on the 14th of March, a man in his 50’s who never travelled out of the country but presented with symptoms and tested positive and a Nigerian male who arrived Lagos on the 13th of March from Frankfurt on a Lufthansa flight LH568.
The commissioner, however, said more tests are still being carried out, noting that “it is clear we have acombination of imported cases and local transmission”.
He stated that Lagos State Executive Council is meeting on the next line of action on social distancing noting that the best way to slow the rate is to halt movement of the virus from person to person.
He appealed to passengers on Turkish Airline TK1830that arrived Lagos on the 14th of March and Lufthansaflight LH568 that arrived on the 13th of March to self-isolate themselves and to reach out to officials of Stategovernment on the 08000CORONA toll free line.
“Currently, we are following over 1,300 people right now to find information about the state of their health and the number is increasing,” the Commissioner said.
Abayomi emphasized the need for citizens to practice the principle of ‘Social Distancing’ by avoiding body contacts and public and social gatherings stressing that it is through this that active human to human transmission of the virus can be prevented.
