Four suspected COVID-19 cases have been discharged from the Akwa Ibom State Ibom Multi-Specialty Hospital after testing negative following a reconfirmation test.
One positive case was however recorded and admitted at the isolation facility of the Ibom Multi-Specialty Hospital in Uyo, the state capital.
The Commissioner for Health and COVID-19 Incident Manager, Dominic Ukpong, announced this at the Ibom Multi-Specialty Hospital, Uyo.
Ukpong said that the suspected cases were discharged following the release of five results out of the 31 samples earlier sent to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) by the State COVID-19 Management Committee for testing, after contact tracing and suspicions based on laid down procedure.
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The commissioner explained that the 31 suspected cases were quarantined at the Holding Area pending the release of their test results by NCDC.
“We recently tested 31 patients and we have started getting the results. The final results will be coming in this evening. We’ve got five results so far and of the five results, four are negative, so we discharge them,” Ukpong said.
The state COVID-19 Management Committee expressed appreciation to the State Governor, Udom Emmanuel, for ensuring that adequate logistics have been provided for the discharge of its duties and appealed to the public not to stigmatise the suspected patients, stressing that Covid-19 is not a death sentence.
Ukpong decried the activities of some taxi cab operators who in a bid to avoid being apprehended by law enforcement agents, give facemasks to passengers only to retrieve it for other users when they disembark from their vehicles, warning that such gesture enhances the spread of the virus and advised every person to acquire a mask for himself.
Also speaking, the state Chairman, Hospital Management Board, David Udoumoh, said that the result calls for joy and thanksgiving to God, as it has dowsed the apprehension and confusion that trailed sample collection for testing of the thirty-one suspected cases.
Udoumoh who explained that testing is done based on protocol and case management requirements affirmed that the four patients whose results have been received have tested sufficiently negative to be discharged from the holding area.
