The Ogun State Government has disclosed that the Italian who has been confirmed as Nigeria’s first case of coronavirus (Covid-19) paid a visit to its state.
The Ogun state Commissioner for Health, Tomi Coker, revealed that the Italian carrier visited Ewekoro in Ewekoro Local Government Area of Ogun State, after arriving in Nigeria on Tuesday via Murtala Muhammad International Airport in Lagos.
According to Coker, the Italian visited a manufacturing company (name withheld) in Ewekoro community, adding that the facility has since been quarantined in accordance with health safety standards.
The commissioner, who abandoned her bed rest to attend to the public health emergency, said at a press briefing that the state has epidemiologists and infectious disease consultants already handling the situation with support from the Lagos State Government and Federal Government.
She said efforts are in place to get in touch with people that have had contact with the established index case.
Meanwhile, Lagos State Government says the Italian who has been confirmed as Nigeria’s first case of coronavirus (Covid-19) came into the country via Turkish Airline on February 24.
Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, briefing the press on Friday, alongside commissioner for health, Prof. Akin Abayomi, said the patient, who is now in strict isolation, is in stable condition and has not developed any respiratory symptoms for now.
Also, the Deputy governor of Lagos state, Obafemi Hamzat, in a chat with TVC had this to say:
This young man came in from Italy, Milan. He came in on the 25th. He has a consultancy job with a company in Ogun state. He landed on the 26th, went to Ewkoro and then he fell ill and the doctors were smart enough to say this is somebody that is coming from Italy that has just suddenly fell ill. So they took him in. So we sent an ambulance there with a pep jacket. So they brought him in and then he was diagonised.
The good thing is that he was brought in yesterday morning. Within four hours, he was diagnosed. Our diagonistic tool seemed to work better than we expected. Normally it takes about 8 hours but within four hours, we were able to determine. So he is our biosecurity lab in Yaba. It is a lab that we built that can accomodate 100 for now but it is only one bed that is occupied today. Hopefully it wouldn’t spread. So we are ready. We are well equipped.
He is there and he is getting better. The challenge is not for people to have the virus. If you don’t know, that is the challenge. In this case, it is known that he has it. He is going to be okay. He is steady. The doctors say he is going to be fine.
What we are doing now is that he came in through one airline, so we are tring to track everybody on that flight. He went from Lagos to Ewekoro. Who has he met? What has happened? Those are the people that we are tracking, isolate them and then check.” he said