UPDATE ON THE CORONAVIRUS PATIENT IN LAGOS By Prof. Akin Abayomi, Commissioner for Health
Citizen NewsNG
2 min read
Q: Did the Italian attempt to run away ??
A: I have spoken to him myself, he is doing very well, he is comfortable; he was comfortable yesterday and he is comfortable today.
Q: Where is the patient staying ?
A: He was initially kept in a single isolation room for his privacy and he has been moved to one of the new wards.
Q: What is the current condition of the patient ?
A: As of this morning, his condition has improved, he hasn’t developed new symptoms but he still has a mild fever and we will be running tests to see what the situation is with the virus in his body and as soon as we get a negative screen, we will keep him for another 2-3 days and repeat the tests to make sure that there are no more virus particles in his saliva and that means that he will not be contagious. Then, we will give the OK for him to be released back into the community
Q: What of the Uber Driver that made contact with the patient and ran away ??
A: IT IS FAKE NEWS
Q: How safe are the staff of the containment facility ?
A: They are experts in infection prevention and control and they do not go into the isolation unit without full personal protective equipment. This is a specialist facility and there is no level of carelessness going on in this facility. The staff here including the staff in the bio-safety level laboratory are well trained and certified biosecurity specialists so there is no unprofessionalism in this environment”
Q: Do we have enough Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)?
A: Ww are stocked up for now, if we need to get more, we know exactly where to get it, so we are not worried about PPE supply.
Q: How Prepared is Lagos State to handle this ?
A: We have been preparing since the Ebola incident of 2014 and as soon as Lagos was certified Ebola free, we have been building capacity. This is evident in the level of sophistication in some of the facilities here at Mainland hospital, We have not been sitting down or relaxing, we don’t want to experience what happened in 2014 again, so we are ready and we will continue to build that capacity year by year. The facilities here are world class, we have a biosafety level 3 laboratory, which is one of the very few in the continent of Africa. It is specially designed to handle very dangerous pathogens so that we can make the diagnosis onsite and the staff there are specially trained, so we are ready for any biosecurity threat to Lagos state.
