COVID-19: Anambra discharges index patient — after five days

The only patient receiving treatment for COVID-19 in Anambra state has been discharged.

In a statement on Thursday, Don Adinuba, commissioner for information, said the patient, a 58-year-old, spent only five days at an isolation centre in the state.

According to him, the treatment and recovery of the patient is one of the shortest anywhere in the world.

TheCable has not been able to verify the claim.

“At about 8 pm on Good Friday, April 10, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) announced that Anambra State, despite the inspiring efforts of the state administration to shield the people from the ravaging coronavirus pandemic, had finally been infected,” the commissioner said.

“Just five days later, new specimens from the index case read negative for COVID-19. A second test conducted four days later by the NCDC confirmed that the index case has really been cured of the contagion.

“Consequently, Governor Willie Obiano on Wednesday, April 22, directed the Commissioner for Health to release the 58-year old man from the protection centre at the General Hospital, Onitsha, Nigeria’s first facility to meet the World Health Organisation (WHO) standards in the management of COVID-19 cases.

“The treatment of Anambra’s index case has turned out to be one of the shortest anywhere in the world.”

Adinuba praised the “competence” of the healthcare workers in Anambra, narrating how a severe outbreak of lassa fever was prevented in the state.

“Last February, for instance, the state recorded an index case of Lassa fever. The index case was a 25- year old female undergraduate of a university. Once doctors at the state university teaching hospital began to suspect that the lady could be a Lassa fever patient, they started to discreetly trace her contacts,” he said.

“Therefore, no sooner that she was confirmed at the testing centre at Irrua in Edo State to be a Lasser fever patient than as many as 28 persons with whom she had contact in the previous two weeks in both her school and her hometown were traced and quarantined.

“The index case Lasser fever case was not just managed successfully but all her contacts were treated in accordance with both the WHO and NCDC protocols. In other words, Anambra did not have more than one case of Lassa fever when some of her neighbours were having quite a number.”