Lagos making progress in handling primary coronavirus carriers, closing in on secondary carriers

The Lagos State government is making progress in identifying and handling primary carriers of coronavirus in the state. Invariably, the state may be successfully dealing with those who brought the coronavirus into Nigeria from Europe and America and has pushed the health crisis to transmission cases in the state. The consequence is that severe coronavirus cases are getting low in the state while mild cases are being handled by the intervention agencies.

The Lagos State Commissioner for health, Professor Akin Abayomi, at a briefing on Tuesday, revealed that most coronavirus cases in the state are not severe, adding that victims are not in need of ventilators.

The Commissioner explained: “Most of our patients are experiencing a very mild to moderate degree of illness.

“In fact, we don’t have anybody that is requiring ventilation at the moment which is a symptom of what you would describe as severe disease.”

The Commissioner acknowledged that Lagos has recorded 81 cases. He explained that 66 cases were transmission within Lagos, indicating that the state has reduced primary infection to the minimum, now dealing with secondary cases. The additional 15 cases were discovered from ship crew members at the Lagos seaport. This implies that the risk of importation of coronavirus into Nigeria has shifted from the airports to the seaports.

The Health Commissioner had narrated: “We have 15 cases that came off a vessel that was maneuvering off the coast of Lagos, doing some oil and gas work.

“The ship had a positive case; we airlifted the positive case off the ship, and we went backtest the 51-crew officials. We initially found seven positives, we removed the seven from the ship to Yaba and the company has isolated the remaining 44. Of those 44, another eight tested positive. So, we had a total of 15 from that vessel off the coast.”

Professor Abayomi further remarked: “So, that does not represent transmission within Lagos.

“We’re removing 15 from the 81, otherwise it would give us a false impression of what’s going on.”

The Commissioner further narrated the success story that of the 66, none of them is experiencing any severe symptoms.

“If we were to put a percentage on those 66, I would estimate the 33 out of those 66 are mild and about 33 are showing moderate disease just characterised by severe fever, feeling weak, some coughing and headache and body pains.

“But it is not extending to affect the organs such that we have lung or kidney failure,” the Commissioner explained. He added aggressive contact tracing is being carried out to curb further spread of the disease.

Lagos State government is showing records of coming close to eradicating coronavirus from the state.