All 179 people who were isolated following their contact with the Italian who brought Coronavirus to Nigeria have been discharged, Lagos State government has announced.
Akin Abayomi, Commissioner for health in the state, said on Friday that out of the 179 people who had contact with the Italian, 40 were quarantined in Ogun State, while the remaining were monitored in Lagos State.
“Very soon we will be able to categorically say we have eliminated the outbreak of Coronavirus that entered Nigeria on the 27th of February,”
“One hundred and seventy-nine contacts with the Italian were traced and since they have exceeded the mandatory 14 days isolation, they have been let go as none of them developed any symptom of the disease,” he said.
However, the commissioner said that the index case still remained on admission. “He is perfectly well now. We are only keeping him because he still has some secretion of the virus. The test shows that anytime from now, he may be negative. If he is negative, we will conduct another test within 48 hours after, and if he is still negative, we will set him free,” explained.
“We are close to discharging the index case; we want to be sure he poses no danger to the society anymore,” Abayomi added.
On the Nigerian who initially tested positive to Coronavirus for being in contact with the index case, Abayomi said he has tested negative twice and might have been released by now.
“His tests initially showed that he was positive to Coronavirus twice and now, he has tested negative to the virus twice on two consecutive tests carried out. The remaining contacts in Ogun and Lagos State remain symptom-free and they have exceeded 14 days surveillance which means that we have been able to interrupt the transmission between the index case and others. The index case and its threat to Nigeria have been eliminated.
“Those isolated in Ogun State have been discharged. In Lagos, we will not follow up on the contacts again because none of them has developed symptoms. We are discharging all,” he said.
“We believe that by being extremely aggressive, we will curtail the outbreak. The state government has sent more health personnel to the airport to assist the Federal medical team,” Abayomi said.
