By Monsuru Olowoopejo
The Lagos State Government may discharge coronavirus index case, the Italian national, who brought the deadly to Nigeria after results showed that he was negative and his body had stopped excreting the virus.
Lagos State Commissioner for Health, Prof. Akin Abayomi, who disclosed this on Thursday at a news conference on the pandemic, said the index case, who had been receiving treatment at the Infectious Disease Hospital, IDH, Yaba, had tested negative to the disease.
While describing the new development as good news for Nigeria, Abayomi noted that he would not be allowed to go yet until a confirmatory test had been carried out within 48 hours, saying that if he tested negative the second time, he would be discharged.
It would be recalled that the Italian tested negative for Coronavirus on Thursday 27, February, 2020, two days after arriving Nigeria from Milan, Italy for a brief business visit to LaFarge.
According to Abayomi, “He fell ill on the 26th February and was transferred to Lagos State Biosecurity Facilities for isolation and testing. COVID-19 infection was confirmed by the Virology Laboratory of the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, part of the Laboratory Network of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control. The patient is clinically stable, with no serious symptoms, and is being managed at the Infectious Disease Hospital in Yaba, Lagos.”
The Italian had gone to LaFarge, where he had contacts with staff of the company. Forty people were later quarantined at LaFarge, out of which one tested positive for Coronavirus.
The second case who was infected by the Italian tested negative few days after he was quarantined, however, all new cases were responding to treatment at the IDH in Yaba, Lagos.
