Yesterday, Oyo State recorded its first COVID-19 death. He was a Kano-based Assistant Comptroller at Customs (name withheld) who not only lied about g
Yesterday, Oyo State recorded its first COVID-19 death. He was a Kano-based Assistant Comptroller at Customs (name withheld) who not only lied about getting prior testing with Nigeria Center for Disease Control, NCDC but hid his travel history and flouted isolation instructions. Perhaps the story would have been much different had he been forthcoming.
The man in his 50s had heard of how someone despite the lockdown, had travelled from the North to the West. And so, when he began to feel unwell, he quickly decided to make the trip to Ibadan where his family lives despite the lockdown on Friday April 17th. He thus managed to expose himself to more people than necessary.
While in Ibadan, he visited at least three private hospitals and two laboratories where his samples were taken, including the University College Hospital where he eventually passed on. But he never told them he came in from Kano where the COVID-19 cases have been on the rise or that his samples had earlier been taken by the NCDC who told him to await result and self-isolate but he didn’t.
While two of the three hospitals managed him for typhoid and malaria, UCH managed him for pneumonia. It was at the third private hospital that a doctor suggested taking his samples for COVID testing. This was when he admitted that his samples had already been taken by the NCDC and he was only awaiting his result and then finally opened up about his travel details. He was then referred to the UCH. The test result eventually came back positive on Wednesday, but he died hours earlier.
Now, not only did the man expose himself to healthcare workers in all the hospitals he went, as the people at these hospitals were without PPE or face mask, he also exposed his wife and children. For the private hospitals, what this means is that they would have to shut down for at least two weeks for decontamination and quarantining according to NCDC standards. But there are reports that one of the hospitals is yet to comply.
According to the Oyo State governor, Seyi Makinde, contact tracing has already began in earnest.
