Relief came to the families of all the 179 people quarantined for having contact with the Italian who was diagnosed with COVID-19 popularly known as coronavirus in Nigeria as they were released yesterday.
Forty of the 179 people who had contact with the index case were quarantined in Ogun State while the rest were monitored in Lagos State.
Speaking at a briefing to give an update on the disease, yesterday, Lagos State Commissioner for Health, Prof. Akin Abayomi, said the 179 contacts with the Italian were traced and quarantined, adding that since they had exceeded the mandatory 14 days isolation, they were released as they did not develop any symptom of the disease.
According to him, the index case was still on admission, though perfectly well.
“We are only keeping him because he still has some secretion of the virus. 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. We are close to discharging the index case; we want to be sure he poses no danger to the society anymore,” he said.
On the Nigerian who initially tested positive to the virus, Abayomi said he had tested negative twice and would be released.
“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 has 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 symptoms. We are discharging all,” he said.
On what the government would do next, Abayomi noted that by being extremely aggressive, the country would curtail the outbreak, saying the state government had sent more health personnel to the airport to assist the federal medical team.
Meanwhile, the Lagos State government yesterday began an eight-week massive deratization and fumigation of no fewer than 27 model colleges with hostel facilities, abattoirs and slaughter houses, agricultural produce markets as well as regular markets in the state.
The State Commissioner for Agriculture, Prince Gbolahan Lawal, who disclosed this yesterday in Lagos, noted that the exercise was aimed at preventing the outbreak and spread of the Lassa fever in the state.
The Commissioner said all the abattoirs and slaughter houses in the state would also be deratised, stressing that the government was taking proactive measures in order to improve the overall general sanitation and hygiene of public places in the state.
Lawal urged residents to ensure that rats were totally exterminated from their homes, adding that the importance of promoting good community hygiene could not be over emphasised.
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