So far, 58 people who had contact with the Italian man infected with the new coronavirus, are being have been self-quarantined and are being monitored
So far, 58 people who had contact with the Italian man infected with the new coronavirus, are being have been self-quarantined and are being monitored, Osagie Ehanire the health minister has said, as officials scrambled to stop the disease spreading, DailyTrust is reporting.
On Friday last week, Nigerian confirmed the first case of the virus in sub-Saharan Africa after the patient was diagnosed in Lagos. The Italian had arrived from Milan on a business trip a week ago and travelled to Lafarge, a company in neighbouring Ogun state before being diagnosed. He was quarantined at the Infectious Disease Hospital in Lagos and is said to be responding to treatment.
Authorities launched efforts to track down all those he might have had contact with.
“Currently, the contacts of the index case are identified as 19 contacts in Lagos and 39 contacts in Ogun state. We are in touch with these contacts who are under supervised self-isolation and the states have provided them with temperaure monitoring tools,” the minister said, adding that they would be under observation for at least 14 days.
The minister said the measure was to control the spread of the disease, which has killed more than 3,000 people, mostly in China where it broke out late last year.
“Contact tracing is a specialised activity that is done by experts — epidemiologists who know exactly what questions to ask and how to track people down. And the purpose is to know if you have an index case, who has been in contact with, and what is the likelihood that that person contracted the disease,” he said.
Ehanire said health officials would continue to hunt for more contacts with the Italian, adding that the 156 passengers on the same flight with him when he came to Nigeria were also being traced.
Nigeria is viewed as highly vulnerable to viral spread given its weak health system and high population density. Prior to the case in Nigeria, the first in sub-saharan Africa, there had been just two cases on the continent — in Egypt and Algeria.
