29th May, 2020
Richard Elesho/ Lokoja
Kogi state doubled down on Thursday night in rejecting its inclusion in the coronavirus caseload in the country.
The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, NCDC, announced two cases for the state on Wednesday.
But the State government has rubbished the claim and insisted that its territory is free from the pandemic.
The declaration of the two cases was “a beautiful fraud” according to Kingsley Fanwo, the State Commissioner for Information and Communication.
He made this known on Thursday evening when he featured on Channels Television.
The Commissioner explained that the alleged COVID-19 Patient was an Imam who was stung by bees. The Imam was rushed to a private clinic from where he was taken to the Federal Medical Centre, FMC Lokoja. He was then moved to Abuja. Fanwo said the man showed no symptom of COVID-19.
The Commissioner explained that the alleged COVID-19 Patient was an Imam who was stung by bees.
The Imam was rushed to a private clinic from where he was taken to the Federal Medical Centre, FMC Lokoja. He was then moved to Abuja.
Fanwo said the man showed no symptom of COVID-19.
Fanwo insisted that the NCDC declaration was fraudulent and unacceptable to the State.
To buttress the point, he noted that 14 Members of his family have been traced and tested by the State “but they all turned out negative.”
He added that another 2 patients have been referred to the state testing centre today by the FMC and they turned out negative.
“NCDC has said all States of the federation must have COVID-19 Even when it was only in Lagos, Abuja, Ogun and Kano States, but we reject in its entirety this fraudulent inclusion of Kogi State on COVID-19 log.
“We have capacity for testing. We are well prepared to curtail and manage any case of COVID-19 but we will not accept fictitious declaration of positive cases.
“We will continue to ensure the safety of our people”.
Meanwhile, the NCDC said it followed due process in recording the Kogi cases.
At the briefing by the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 in Abuja on Thursday, the Director-General of the NCDC, Chikwe Ihekweazu, said the Kogi index case was a referral from the Federal Medical Centre in Lokoja.
“There is actually no dilemma in the two cases,” he said.
“They followed absolutely normal practice.
“A patient that was referred from the Federal Medical Centre to the National Hospital. This is a normal referral pathway when you have a case.
“The physicians in the National Hospital, I don’t have any influence over the work that they do. They suspected COVID-19 based on the clinical symptoms of the patient, asked for a test, and the test came out positive.
“The individual lives in Kogi state and public health response is based on where you live because that’s where your contacts are.
“So this is not controversial in any way.
”Standard practice was followed. Once the results came out, the state’s Epidemiologist was informed that he has to do contact-tracing around this patient.
”It is the state’s responsibility to do that contact-tracing. So we hope they do it. There is nothing actually controversial in any way about this.”