On Wednesday, Oyo state recorded first death from the coronavirus pandemic as a patient died at the University College Hospital Ibadan.
According to Governor Seyi Makinde, the patient died before his result came out today and kicked off contact tracing to contain the spread.
On Thursday, details emerged that the Oyo’s 1st COVID-19 death was a Kano-based Assistant Comptroller at Customs.
According to Fisayo Soyombo, a Nigerian journalist, the Comptroller lied about a few things relating to his condition.
In a series of tweets, revealing the details, he alleged that: “He hid his travel history; he hid his testing by the NCDC; he flouted isolation instructions. But there’s quite a lot this death can teach us — if we really want to learn, that is.
“The 50-something-year-old would probably not have travelled from Kano, where he works, to Ibadan, where his family lives. But someone in Kano had told him how he travelled from the North-West to the South-West despite the lockdown. Therefore, when he started feeling unwell, he opted to travel to Ibadan. This was last Friday — April 17, 2020. He managed to expose more people to the virus than he would have, had he remained in Kano.
“First lesson: All those travelling unnecessarily during this lockdown and the corrupt security agents enabling them are promoting a habit that is fast gaining traction. They have to stop it; else, many innocent people will pay for it.”
According to Soyombo, while in Ibadan, the deceased visited at least three private hospitals and two labs, plus the UCH where he eventually passed on. But he neither told them he’d just returned from Kano nor that his samples had been taken by the NCDC.
“Two of those three hospitals managed him for typhoid and malaria; UCH managed him for pneumonia. It was at the third private hospital that a doctor suggested taking his samples for COVID testing. This was when he admitted, for the first time, that his samples had been taken by the NCDC already but he was only awaiting his result. As of that time, he hadn’t even revealed that he had just come into Ibadan from Kano.
“Another lesson: There’s no point for anyone to hide their COVID-19 status or travel history. More often than not, it reduces your chances of receiving quality treatment and staying alive. And on top of that, you infect more people. Be open!
“This man’s samples were collected for testing on Monday. NCDC told him to self-isolate but he didn’t. In fact, it was after this testing that he went to the third private hospital, that same Monday. And he returned to that private hospital the following day, Tuesday.
“It was on Tuesday when the suggestion of sample collection was made by a doctor at the private hospital that he opened up about his details; he was therefore referred to the UCH. The test result came back positive on Wednesday, but he’d died hours earlier.
“Third lesson: Telling people to self-isolate after sample collection clearly isn’t working; the authorities have to rethink this strategy. How do you, for example. expect a man cramped up in a one or two-bed apartment with, say, his wife and four kids to effectively self-isolate?
“In most cases, these patients still move around in search of alternative treatment until the result is out. Particularly for people who are already symptomatic, we need to retain them at the isolation centre for the two days when they’re expecting their results. If they then test –ve, they’re released.
“Now, this man, has exposed healthcare workers at a minimum of one private hospital as well as patients and staff at the UCH, post-testing, in addition to the people at the two private hospitals he exposed pre-testing. Meanwhile, there are HCWs who attended to him at these hospitals without PPE or face mask!
“The NCDC standard for private hospital exposure to COVID-19 is for the hospitals to shut down for two weeks for contact tracing, decontamination and quarantining. I can confirm that at least one of these hospitals hasn’t complied with the two-week shutdown order, even though @NCDCgov passed this message on to them.”
