For the past few days, apprehension has been heightened around Oba Adebimpe Road, Dugbe Ibadan over the suspected outbreak of the deadly Covid-19 in an establishment in the area.
According to Radio Nigeria, the area is an industrial environment which accommodates offices with high human traffic including government and private agencies.
Popular among establishments in the area are; Cocoa House, which houses not fewer than ten businesses, Cocoa Mall, one of the biggest malls in the state, Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria, FRCN, commercial banks, the former Kingsway building, which also accommodates no fewer than five business establishments as well as other road side outlets.
Head of the Oyo COVID-19 Task Force, Governor Seyi Makinde earlier announced a total number of those who have tested positive in the said organization as thirty.
A subsequent release added another eight to those who have tested positive to the virus while the latest record has another nineteen people in the same establishment positive to the virus making a total of 57.
The government, though had not disclosed the identity of the establishment, stated that the company was located in Ibadan South West Local Government.
It was gathered that the organization has over 300 members of staff including some foreigners, who work on morning, afternoon and night shifts, and several of them are conveyed in the same staff bus.
Since the news broke, many residents of Oyo State have been curious to identify the company.
And such curiosity had led to series of permutations, based on the little information given by the task force on the said organization.
However, the curiosity narrowed down on Monday when two Ambulances of the NCDC drove into one of the building structure that houses many businesses under Ibadan Southwest Local Government in the said area and took away an appreciable number of members of staff of a business outlet.
The NCDC had earlier on Sunday fumigated the entire building.
A worker in the organization in an informal WhatsApp chat with our reporter said ‘although the people on isolation now are staff in second floor, that’s where they have confirmed cases’.
Information has it that samples of members of staff who resumed for morning duty on Sunday had been taken for testing by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) in collaboration with officials of the Oyo COVID-19 Task Force.
Meanwhile, some residents of Ibadan have called on the state government to embark on immediate fumigation of Dugbe area to prevent an uncontrollable spread of the dreaded disease.
They also urged the state government to be proactive in the fight against coronavirus.
The government had earlier been adviced on the need to control operations of companies with many workers to forestall the spread of corona virus but the government appears not to have promptly yielded to the warning.
