Nigeria was the first sub-Saharan country to report an official case of coronavirus, when an Italian working in the country came back from Milan on February 24 carrying the virus. © Pius Utomi Ekpei, AFP
The Honourable Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanir has announced a second confirmed case of COVID-19 in Nigeria.
The Minister who made the announcement at a press briefing in Abuja said that the second case is a contact of the index case, in Ogun State.
He stated that “The new case has been in isolation and was tested as part of our strategy to test all contacts of the index case.”
The newly confirmed case, he declared was under clinical follow-up and does not have any clinical symptoms, is comfortable and in care at the Infectious Disease Hospital, Lagos.
The Health Minister said “As you know, 40 persons in Ogun and 20 in Lagos are under isolation and have remained free of any symptoms since.
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“Nevertheless, the Federal Ministry of Health, following best practice, decided to test these persons for the possible presence of coronavirus in their systems.”
“On 8th March 2020, scientists confirmed the presence of coronavirus in one of the contacts.
“The newly confirmed case is an Ogun State contact of the index case, but he has no significant clinical symptoms. This brings the total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Nigeria today to two.”
Dr Ehanire declared that recent studies in China have shown that increased surveillance, self-isolation and in particular, contact tracing does reduce risk of spread because further opportunities for transmission of the virus by the infected patient in the community are limited.
He assured that all other contacts of the index case in Ogun and Lagos will remain in isolation and testing will be carried out on those not yet tested, including some in other states.
The minister said that the Nigerian that was confirmed to have coronavirus had visited Lagos in February 2020 but given the timelines between the time he was in Nigeria briefly and when he became ill, the likelihood that he was infected in Lagos is very low.
The minister, therefore, advises against spreading misinformation to cause fear and panic because the Federal Ministry of Health and NCDC will continue to provide prompt and reliable updates and initiate all measures required to protect Nigerians.
According to him “The Federal Ministry of Health, and Lagos and Ogun States Health Ministries assure citizens of our promise to do all needed to control the spread of this outbreak. Since the first case was confirmed in Nigeria on 27th of February 2020, the National Emergency Operations Centres (EOC) in Abuja, continues to work closely with Lagos and Ogun State EOCs to coordinate response activities.”
He announced that a team of researchers from various institutions in Nigeria, including scientists from the Centre for Human and Zoology Virology in LUTH, African Centre for Genomics of Infectious Diseases in Redeemers University and the Nigeria Institute of Medical Research (NIMR) Lagos, had successfully performed the genome sequencing of the coronavirus strain that the index case brought to Nigeria.
He said the result proved the coronavirus in Nigeria matches with the virus circulating in Italy and Wuhan.
He said this is the first time the sequencing of this virus has been performed in Africa.
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