In a recent development, a man diagnosed with coronavirus in Kebbi State absconded from an isolation centre and subsequently died in his house, announced the state Task Force chairman for COVID-19, Jaafaru Mohammed.
Mohammmed, who doubles as the state Commissioner for Health confirmed the incident in Birnin-Kebbi on Saturday, when he briefed newsmen on the situation report on activities of the state’s COVID-19 Task Force on the pandemic in the state.
He said, “the second case was a patient from the Federal Medical Centre, Birnin Kebbi. He was a 60-year-old man, a known diabetic and hypertensive patient who was brought to the isolation centre from the Usmanu Danfodiyo University Teaching Hospital (UDUTH), Sokoto, by his relatives.
After the review of his case by a consultant, COVID-19 was suspected and our Rapid Response Team swung into action. His samples were taken on the 25th of April, 2020, but, regrettably he absconded from the Isolation centre and died at home on the 26th of April, 2020. The corpse was taken to UDUTH mortuary, as against the earlier information that it was taken to Benue State for burial.
The commissioner revealed that his team had traced the man’s 12 close contacts and 17 other contacts. Their samples had been taken to the reference laboratory in UDUTH, Sokoto, while the Sokoto State Epidemiology centre and the management of UDUTH have been contacted.
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The Kebbi state commissioner for health appealed to the citizens of the state to remain calm as everything humanly possible was being done by the task force as well as other relevant health professionals and stakeholders to contain the spread of the disease.
Mohammed also noted that the task force has substantial technical support from the Nigeria Centre For Diseases Control (NCDC) in this fight against the virus, revealing that the Sokoto Reference Laboratory has been activated at UDUTH, and that “we are going to reduce the turn-around time of the delay of collecting the results of samples.