By Tina George, Minna
The Niger state task force on COVID-19, has so far traced and quarantined 74 persons, who had contact with the suspected Coronavirus, COVID-19 case.
This was confirmed by the Niger State Epidemiologist, Dr. Patrick Gimba, who said the 74 people, including 53 from Limawa community and 21 in Suleja, had contact with the COVID-19 confirmed case.
Confirming this in a Radio programme in Minna, the Secretary to the state government, who is also the Chairman of COVID-19 taskforce, Ahmed Matane said the 53 people in Limawa, were quarantined because the COVID-19 confirmed case had been in contact with them after he was released from the hospital.
He explained that the confirmed case had been released from the isolation center after his return from Lagos, because he showed no symptoms of the infection, but recalled three days later after the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, NCDC, confirmed him a carrier.
The SSG further said that these contacts were under close monitoring and observation for any symptomatic behavior with a timeframe of 14 days quarantine.
He also said that the state is awaiting the results of two other cases that are with the NCDC.
“In addition to the confirmed COVID-19 confirmed case, we have two other cases whose sample results have not returned from NCDC. We also have about 30 people in the Minna social rehabilitation center on isolation.”
In a related development, the Director of Niger State Public Health, Dr. Ibrahim Idris disclosed that about 11 specimen samples have so far been taken to NCDC for analysis and evaluation.