COVID-19: Lagos shuts Eti-Osa isolation centre

The Lagos government has shut down the isolation centre in Eti Osa local government area of the state.

Babajide Sanwo-Olu, governor of the state, announced the closure of the facility at Lagos House, Marina, during the 17th update on the management of coronavirus in the state.

He said the isolation centre at Agindigbi in Ikeja would also be closed and the patients relocated to a large capacity centre – Indo-Centre in Anthony, which would be soon be inaugurated.

“Over the last four, five months, we have built excess capacity centre, but that is only the way to go, you cannot over-prepare,” he said.

“We have got to a stage where we need to balance the economics of this and which of these facilities do we need to keep running. Some of them now are having less than 20 per cent of occupancy.

“This is why we reached a conclusion to shut Eti-Osa facility and another one in Lekki.”

He explained that the Infectious Diseases Hospital in Yaba “is now also gradually being reverted back to its former status as a hospital to cater to all forms of infectious diseases.”

However, the governor said the dedicated tent of CACOVID, a private sector initiative, at the Infectious Diseases Hospital in Yaba, would remain strictly for COVID-19 cases.

Sanwo-Olu said in June, the government expanded COVID-19 testing capacity in Lagos with the accreditation of seven private laboratories.

According to him, in the week which ended July 26, the government successfully tested close to 9,000 samples across the public and private sector laboratories.

He said that showed a 50 percent increase from the approximately 6,000 samples tested in each of the preceding two weeks.

The governor said that the increase in testing would lead to an increase in the number of daily confirmed cases of the virus in the state.