Three travellers from Togo heading for Sokoto, Jos test positive for coronavirus in Ogun

From left, Secretary to the Ogun State Government, Mr. Tokunbo Talabi, the DIrector General, Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Dr Chikwe Ihekwazu and Commissioner for Health, Dr. Tomi Coker, during the inspection of isolation centre at the 250 bed hospital, in Abeokuta,on Wednesday

The Ogun State government, on Wednesday, said the three new cases of coronavirus in the state are Nigerians returning into the country from Togo.

This was disclosed by the Commissioner for Health, Dr. Tomi Coker, during the inspection of the Intensive Care Unit of the 250-bed hospital by the Director General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Dr. Chikwe Ihekwazu and the World Health Organisation (WHO) team at Oke-Mosan, Abeokuta.

Coker explained that the new cases were among eight returnees from Togo travelling to Sokoto and Jos.

The commissioner said the returnees, the driver and the bus conductor, all 10 in number, were stopped at the border of Imeko-Afon.

She added that the 10 were subjected to coronavirus test, within 48-hours with three testing positive, five negative while awaiting the results of the remaining two.

“About 72-hours ago, we had eight returnees from Togo heading towards Sokoto and Jos. We housed them here with a driver and a bus conductor making 10 of them. We ran a test on them about 48-hours ago and out of the 10, we got eight results of which three were positive.

“They are Nigerian citizens returning to the nation. They were met at the border of Imeko, we were notified of their return. They are Nigerians returning from Togo. The important thing is that these are reported cases and if we don’t deal with them now, we might have issues of community spreading,” she added.

Coker submitted that five cases were transferred from Lagos to Ogun,because the patients were from the same cluster and get tested in Lagos State.

The commissioner said: “The five cases that you saw were the one accredited to us from Lagos, because they reside in Ogun State, but they went to test in Lagos State. As you recall, two weeks ago, we had similar case.”

Coker encouraged the people of the state to take advantage of the mobile testing across the 20 local government areas of the state to know their status.

“So, I must encourage everyone, we are out in 20 local governments, we are testing each ward each day for the next fourteen days so that we can avoid community speed because once we have community spread, we would have a challenge on our hands.

“However, we should expect that we are going to keep on having a ramping up of numbers. As we announced, we started testing population based since yesterday, when we do more tests, we are likely to have more results that are positive and the state is prepared.”

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