Amid uproar, Lagos backtracks, says Dubai returnee didn’t die of COVID-19

Lagos State government on Thursday night retracted its earlier claim that one of the returnees from Dubai, died of COVID-19.

Other returnees, quarantined at an isolation centre in Lekki, had protested in a viral video clip, disproving the earlier official position.

The frustrated Nigerians also rebuked the official reception they received as inhuman, claiming no one had come visiting, to check on their welfare.

It was also claimed in the video that the deceased boarded ailing, though certified fit to fly, without any attribution to COVID-19 in his diagnosis.

ALSO READ: No conclusion yet on ‘strange’ deaths in Kano

The deceased reportedly fainted twice in Dubai, before he was eventually evacuated alongside others.
The state commissioner for health, Professor Akin Abayomi, in a tweet last night, explained the circumstances leading to their earlier official stance on the returnee’s death.

According to him, “I hereby inform the general public that the Nigerian who recently returned from Dubai as part of a group of returnees who were placed in a COVID-19 isolation program in Lekki developed complications and was transferred to one of our facilities where he died.

“Because of the sudden nature of his demise and without any prior knowledge of his multiple preexisting conditions it was presumed to be a COVID-19 related death, pending confirmation by COVID-19 gold standard test.

“This presumptive attribution is a precaution to ensure the safe clinical management of the patient and subsequent handling of the corpse.

The definitive COVID-19 gold standard test has turned out to be negative for the COVID-19 infection and his death is no longer considered to have been attributable to COVID-19.”

YOU SHOULD NOT MISS THESE HEADLINES FROM NIGERIAN TRIBUNE

Buy and read digital replicas of your TRIBUNE titles by subscribing through E-VENDING

COVID-19: 950 More Nigerian Children Under Five Could Die Daily Without Urgent Action ― UNICEF
It has been observed that unless urgent actions are taken, an additional 950 Nigerian children, mostly under-five years, could die daily from preventable causes over the next six months as the COVID-19 pandemic disrupts routine services and threatens to weaken the health system… Read full story

WHO Warns Coronavirus May Never Go Away As Toll Nears 300,000
The coronavirus may never go away and populations will have to learn to live with it just as they have HIV, the World Health Organization has warned, as the global death toll from the disease nears 300,000. There were also gloomy forecasts from the US Federal Reserve, which said prolonged shutdowns to stem… Read full story