BY Haleem Olatunji
Ngozi Erondu, an associate fellow in the global health programme at Chatham House, UK, says Nigeria’s speedy confirmation of the coronavirus case is commendable.
Nigeria recorded its first case of the disease on Friday, following the arrival of an Italian businessman from Milan, Italy, which has the highest rate of the infection in Europe.
The patient, who tested positive to the virus on Friday, has been in Nigeria since Monday.
Erondu, in a New York Times report, was said to have commended Nigeria over the quick detection and isolation of the patient.
“Nigeria’s confirmation of the coronavirus case in just two days is a very positive reflection of the disease surveillance and laboratory capacity in Nigeria.”
“But it will be key for all African countries to enhance scrutiny of travelers, especially those coming from countries with documented outbreaks.”
Speaking on Your View, a programme on Television Continental (TVC), Obafemi Hamzat, deputy governor of Lagos, had also commended the diagnostic equipment in the country, saying it works better than expected.
He said the Italian visited Ewekoro in Ogun state from where doctors first suspected he had the virus when he checked into a hospital.
“This young man came in from Italy, Milan, on the 25th. He has a consultancy job with a company in Ogun state …so he landed on the 26th…. went to Ewekoro, and then he fell ill and the doctors were smart enough to say this is someone coming in from Italy that just suddenly took ill,” he said.
“So we sent an ambulance there with a pep jacket and they brought him in and then he was diagnosed.
“The good thing is that he was brought in yesterday morning and within four hours, he had been diagnosed, so our diagnosis tools seem to work better than we expected. Normally, it takes eight hours.”
During the Ebola virus epidemic in 2014, Nigeria had responded swiftly, preventing it from escalating.
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