ILORIN – The Kwara State Government has confirmed two cases of COVID-19 in the state.
The Chief Press Secretary to the Governor and spokesman of the Technical Committee on COVID-19, Rafiu Ajakaye, announced this on Monday evening via a statement.
He also confirmed the authenticity of the statement when contacted by PREMIUM TIMES.
According to Mr Ajakaye, one of the infected persons is the wife of a patient, a UK returnee who died last Thursday, and the other is another UK returnee.
“This statement is issued at 18:33pm, a few minutes after the government received official confirmation of test results from the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) Test Centre in Ibadan,” he said.
He noted that the government will address a news briefing on Tuesday to give details and announce further measures to tackle the disease in the state.
The UITH case
This newspaper reported how the state authorities debunked the discovery of a COVID-19 patient in the state last week.
The management of the University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital (UITH), where the man was admitted, accused a professor of medicine of concealing vital information on the suspected case of COVID-19 who died at the hospital last week.
The federal facility said the suspected case had been on self isolation on arrival in Ilorin prior to his presentation at the Accident and Emergency unit of the hospital “on the advise of the Professor who brought him.”
It said the information of self isolation “was concealed from the frontline medical personnel at first contact in the A&E, an act that the hospital management considered HIGHLY UNETHICAL!”
The death of the 57-year-old UK returnee, identified as Alhaji Obanimomo, generated controversies among Kwara residents and even social media users.
The state government had denied that it was a COVID-19 related case, adding that all the six samples of suspected cases taken in the state had been negative.
As at the time of filing this report, a total of 232 COVID-19 cases have been confirmed across Nigeria. (Premium Times)
