The Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) and the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) are currently in a closed-door meeting over a vessel that reportedly berthed at one of Nigeria’s ports carrying six person’s infected with COVID-19 disease.
Confirming this to Tribune Online exclusively, Spokesman of the NPA, Adams Jatto stated that the agency is not aware of such development and has not been briefed by the Port Health officers at the ports.
“We don’t know where the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) got their information from, but we are yet to receive a report of any vessel that came in with six COVID-19 infected persons.
“We are however in a meeting with NCDC and will update the media soon,” the NPA Spokesman told the Nigerian Tribune exclusively.
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It would be recalled that Twitter had gone riot in the early hours of Friday morning when NPA engaged the NCDC on the validity of claims that a vessel brought in six COVID-19 infected persons to one of Nigeria’s ports.
The official Twitter handle of NCDC had stated that 14 new cases of COVID-19 cases had just been reported, of which six of those were passengers on a vessel that called at Nigeria’s ports.
According to the NCDC tweet, “14 new cases of #COVID19 have been confirmed in Nigeria: 2 in FCT, 12 in Lagos.
“Of the 14, six were detected on a vessel, three are returning travellers into Nigeria & one is a close contact of a confirmed case
“As at 7:35 pm 26th March, there are: 65 confirmed cases, 3 discharged, 1 death”
However, in a swift response to NCDC claims on Friday, the NPA via it’s official Twitter handle stated that, “Hello @NCDCgov. In respect to the six new cases that “were detected on a vessel” in Lagos, the Authority in collaboration with Port Health has not recorded any confirmed cases to date.
“To enable verification and proper record keeping, kindly avail us with specific details on the name of the Vessel the passengers were on board, and the Terminal or Jetty where they berthed.”
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