Borno State committee on prevention and control of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has marked 99 contacts of a deceased aid worker for quarantine.
The measure is to prevent further spread of the disease that killed an aid worker in Maiduguri last Saturday.
Deputy Governor Umar Kadafur, who doubles as Chairman of Borno COVID-19 response committee, disclosed this yesterday in Maiduguri while confirming the first coronavirus case.
According to him, 35 contacts were traced at Pulka, a border community with Cameroon, and 64 in Maiduguri metropolis.
His words,
“I hereby announce to the general public that one case of COVID-19 was confirmed in Maiduguri on Sunday, April 19, 2020. He was a 56-year-old citizen of Borno who was brought in from Pulka with symptoms of severe respiratory disease. He was managed at the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital (UMTH), unfortunately, he succumbed to the disease.”
He noted that nasal swab specimen was collected from the body, which tested positive at the COVID-19 reference laboratories of the hospital and validated by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC).
However, the United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator in Nigeria, Edward Kallon, has said that the aid worker that contracted COVID-19 had no travel history outside Borno before his death last Saturday.
According to him, the health worker was devoting his life to treating vulnerable Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), who lost everything in the decade-long Boko Haram terrorism in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states.
Kallon stated in Maiduguri yesterday, “I am very saddened to confirm the death of 56-year-old health aid worker who had contracted coronavirus disease.
“Our sincerest condolences go to his family, friends and colleagues who are all deeply affected by the loss.”
Humanitarian actors, according to him, have adapted a way of working to prevent the spread of the virus by setting up quarantine facilities across the state, especially at all entry points of Niger, Chad and Cameroon.
In its efforts to supports councils to halt the spread of COVID-19, the Taraba State Primary Health Care Development Agency (TSPHCDA) has flagged off the distribution of health supplies to the councils of the state.
Flagging off the distribution yesterday at the state secretariat in Jalingo, chairman of the agency, Victor Kona, said the items would go a long way in helping to prevent the spread of the virus into any part of the state if judiciously utilised and the preventive measures strictly adhered to.
On his part, the executive secretary of the agency, Alhaji Hassan Aminu, who stressed the determination of the state government to win the battle against the virus, said the issue of COVID-19 “is very key and we are not supposed to be left behind as custodians of health care at the council level.
