No fewer than 200 health workers of the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan on Monday commenced training on methods to curtail the spread of Coronavirus in the state.
The Chief Medical Director, UCH, Prof. Jesse Abiodun Otegbayo, who stated this during the activities heralding the celebration of his one year in office as CMD, said the teaching hospital had been on red alert since the outbreak of Coronavirus was reported.
The CMD, while addressing journalists on his achievements, said: “On Friday, I signed about 200 certificates of training. We are training our staff in batches on how to curtail the infection and on what Coronavirus is about. If you go to any of our clinics, you will see one of our personnel using infra-red thermometer to scan people’s heads to take their temperature.
“We have two standing committees on the virus – we have the UCH Emergency Response Committee and an Infection Control Committee. These committees have been on beat since we heard about this outbreak. In fact, they have been very busy because we had a suspected case (of Coronavirus) on admission. We have an isolation ward as you enter through the main gate of UCH to the right.
“Also, we have generated so much awareness. As you enter the hospital, you will see some posters as well as within the hospital. The committees have been going round to enlighten people.
“If your temperature is found to be higher than normal, without any explanation – because it is not only Coronavirus that causes fever – you will be separated and tested for the virus if you cannot find any other explanation. If we are to be testing everybody with fever in the hospital, we would probably be testing all our incoming patients.”
100 people quarantined in Lagos
The Lagos State Commissioner for Health, Professor Akin Abayomi, on Monday said over 100 people, who have had one sort of contact or the other with the Italian national diagnosed with the new coronavirus infection, have been identified and quarantined.
According to him, there were 159 passengers on the aircraft with the Italian, six people came in contact with him at the hotel in Lagos, 35 people had contact with him at the factory in Ogun state, two drivers and an ambulance driver.
Professor Abayomi, who addressed newsmen shortly after the stakeholder’s meeting on Coronavirus held at Lagos House, Ikeja, said the state is exercising extreme caution by finding where all his contacts are – from the airline to the hotel that he stayed up to the factory that he went to work in Ogun state.
“Most of the contacts have been identified except a few who had either gone back to Europe or gone back to other States or country or had given false information on their forms. We are still trying to find the remaining passengers in the aircraft.
“Our contact list is over 100 and it is increasing everyday. We are quarantining them to check them for 14 days.
“They are staying either in medical facilities or at home and we are calling them twice a day just to check that they are okay. If they develop symptoms, we will bring them to our facility in Lagos to run the test.
“We are doing this because we don’t want to give the virus opportunity to spread from person to person, which will then be the beginning of an outbreak,” he said.
Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos state revealed that two additional containment centres have been created with 80 bed spaces and medical equipment to manage cases.
Sanwo-Olu, who is the Chief Incident Commander for the counter measures against coronavirus outbreak in Lagos state, added that there were two mobile isolation wards of 15-bed capacity each stationed in the hospital.
Sanwo-Olu, who spoke after his visit to the state-owned bio-security and containment facility at the IDH in Yaba, Lagos, said he was highly confident in the response approach initiated by the State’s Incident Command Centre in the wake of the outbreak of the virus, expressing optimism that the nation would survive the epidemic and put it behind.
