Lagos Govt Discharges All 179 Identified Cases Of Coronavirus

The Lagos State Government has said that that all 179 identified cases who were placed on isolation for their contact with the index case, an Italian citizen who brought coronavirus into the country have been discharged, Sun News report.

The state Commissioner for Health, Prof Akin Abayomi, while giving an update at a briefing on Friday said, of the 179 people who had contact with the index case, 40 of them were quarantined in Ogun State while the remaining were monitored in Lagos State.

According to him, initially, 179 contacts with the Italian were traced and since they had exceeded the mandatory 14 days isolation, they had to be discharged as none of them developed any symptoms of the disease.

He, however, disclosed that the index case will remain on admission. “The index case is perfectly well now; we are only keeping him because our test confirmed that he is still secreting some of the virus, which means he is still potentially contagious.

“Our test suggests that any moment from now, his immune system will clear the infection and the moment we pick that up, If he is negative, we will conduct another test within 48 hours after and if he is still negative, he will be discharged likewise.

“We are close to discharging the index case; we want to be sure he poses no danger to the society anymore,” Abayomi said.

On the Nigerian who initially tested positive for coronavirus for being in contact with the index case, Abayomi said he had now tested negative twice and might have been released by now.

“His tests initially showed that he was positive for coronavirus twice and now, he has tested negative for the virus twice on two consecutive tests.”

Meanwhile, the remaining contact in Ogun and Lagos states 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 the threat to Nigeria have been eliminated.

“Those isolated in Ogun State have been discharged; in Lagos, we will not follow up the contacts again because none of them has developed any symptoms. We are discharging all,” he said.

The commissioner disclosed that the four children and their teacher quarantined recently, had been discharged as they all tested negative for the virus, likewise another man from the US who was earlier quarantined.

“We believe that by being extremely aggressive, we will curtail the outbreak. The state government had deployed more health workers to the airport to assist the Federal medical team,” he stated.