The Federal Government said the 67-year-old Nigerian who was the first person to die of COVID-19 early Monday morning had an underlying illness and died due to complications.
Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire, said this during a press briefing to update Nigerians on the pandemic and the efforts to contain the spread.
However, despite the rise in the spread of the disease from 12 cases on Friday to 36 cases on Monday morning, the minister insisted that the Federal Government would not consider compulsory or force isolation of those coming from highly-endemic countries.
But he added that more measures would be instituted by both the Federal and state governments, as the situation demands.
According to him, “we do not hope that we need, at some point, to enforce isolation but we want to depend on the sense of responsibility of all citizens,” adding that “as of forced isolation, we have not come to that yet, but we have on occasion had to go after persons who came from abroad and did not registered their presence and we believe they don’t go for isolation.”
The minister said the country recorded its first death from COVID-19 in the country.
He said: “This was a Nigerian who unfortunately had underlying illnesses and died due to complications on the 22nd of March in Abuja. He had recently returned from the United Kingdom.
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“The man who died has underlying illness. Most of the fatalities of COVID-19 have underlying diseases or too old that their bodies cannot build anti-body resistance,” he added.
Dr Ehanire pointed out that as of Monday morning, Nigeria recorded 36 confirmed cases of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), and of the 36 confirmed cases, 25 are in Lagos, six in FCT, two in Ogun, one each in Edo, Ekiti and Oyo.
The minister added: “Of the 36 cases, 26 had travel history to affected countries in the last two weeks, six are contacts of confirmed cases and four have no recent travel history or known contact.
“In summary, as of the 23rd of March 2020, 36 cases have been confirmed, two cases have been discharged and one death recorded from COVID-19 in Nigeria. Of the 33 active cases, 32 are clinically stable with mild symptoms. One patient is oxygen-dependent.”
Questioned on the state of preparedness, he explained that since the news of the outbreak of COVID-19, the Ministry of Health has been preparing, looking at the situation, studying the situation, looking at the spread of the disease to other countries and looking at the resources available.
He said: “We requested for financial support from Federal Government and we got the support. We started preparing, and procuring, we have bought some of the things we are looking for. So our preparedness started a long time ago.
“We have been focusing on two things; containing the disease and preparing for it. Those are the things we have been doing so far hoping we do not get so many cases coming in. This is an imported disease. We are hoping it doesn’t get to the grassroots that is why we are doing a lot of contact tracing.”
He explained further: “We are going after those who travel from outside the country and find out if they have this disease or not, we put them in self-isolation. Those who are coming from high burden countries are on supervised isolation and if after expected incubation period, nobody tested positive, they are free. Those who are testing positive in that period are taken into isolation proper and giving the treatment until they are well.”
On the fear that it would be devastating if COVID-19 gets into the grassroots as the government insisted only on self-isolation, the minister said: “We hope it doesn’t filters into the grassroots but if it does, we have the primary health care system.
“As of forced isolation we have not come to that yet but we have on occasion had to go after persons who came from abroad and did not register their presence and we believe they don’t go for isolation, we publish their names. Until they volunteer themselves and they are under observation and after the 14-day incubation, they are now free to go.”