The Lagos State Ministry of Health has announced the third case of COVID-19 in the country.
Commissioner for Health Akin Abayomi in a press briefing on Tuesday in Lagos said that the third case of the novel Coronavirus is a new case independent of the index case, an Italian ex-pat.
Disclosing this, the commissioner identified that the third case as a 30-year old Nigerian female who arrived on from the United Kingdom on British Airways flight BA75 on March 13.
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According to him, the lady observed self-isolation after she became unwell with fever and dry cough.
“On March 16, during her self isolation process, she developed symptoms and notified the authorities. Samples were collected at her home to ascertain that she was complying with our self-isolation practices, which indeed she was,” the commissioner disclosed at the briefing.
“We retrieved the samples and tested it and it came out positive. So, as at yesterday (Monday), we now have a third case of coronavirus in Nigeria.”
Abayomi further disclosed that the information was immediately communicated to the Minister of Health, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) and the state government.
“On March 16, we kicked-started the process of self-isolation and she has been moved from her home to the Infectious Disease Hospital (IDH) where she is placed in isolation two because she is no longer a suspect but a confirmed case. So there is no need for her to be placed in isolation one but isolation two.
“We have also started the contact tracing process and thankfully, she obeyed the self-isolation instructions where she confined herself to her home and only in contact with her immediate family. This has helped us tremendously, because it limits our contact tracing to the manifesto of the flight BA75, which arrived on March 13.”
Abayomi however, said that the state government would be reaching out to every passenger on the flight.
“Just as we did with the index case, we would be reaching out to all the passengers.
“While we are making this a public announcement, anybody who is on that flight should feel free to reach out to any of our toll-free call lines,” he said.