Two private hospitals in southeast Nigeria have been ordered shut by authorities over the treatment of patients who tested positive to the COVID-19 Coronavirus.
Executive Governor of Abia State, Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu made the disclosure that government shut down the private hospitals where the two index cases of Coronavirus in Abia State were initially admitted for treatment before they subsequently tested positive for Coronavirus yesterday.
Speaking to journalists yesterday at Governor’s lodge, Dr. Ikpeazu revealed that the doctors, alongside the nurses working in the undisclosed hospitals had been quarantined. He confirmed that the medical team in both hospitals, located at Umuahia North and Ukwa West local government areas respectively of the state had to be put away for 14 days to enable the government assess their health status as regards the COVID-19 pandemic with the view to treating them.
According to him, the processes and protocols of shutting down of the hospitals are being followed strictly, even as he asserted that the names of the COVID-19 patients would not be disclosed to avoid stigmatization.
Ikpeazu stated that because of the reported case of Coronavirus in the state, the Inter-Ministerial Committee on COVID-19 would begin a community to community contact tracing, saying that the two victims had no history of travelling abroad or outside their vicinity except moving round their villages.
“Which means that some people in their communities may have contracted and got them infected and that’s why we should quickly move into the villages and communities to do this contact tracing in order to identify those they were in contact with them before they were tested”, Ikpeazu posited.
The governor revealed that the inter-ministerial committee will cover Umuahia North, Ukwa West and Ikwuano LGAs where the COVID-19 victims had contact with. He therefore warned that his government would tolerate any act of sabotage by the security agencies.
Ikpeazu informed that reports reaching his office show that some security agents at the borders of Abia State were compromising their position by accepting gratifications instead of stopping people from entering the state and warned that the government will treat any security agent caught accepting gratification to allow people enter the state as a saboteur.
According to him, the government will protect Abia citizens and would do everything to bring to book the perpetuators of extrajudicial killings in the state, even as he described it as unlawful the killings of security agents who use the guns bought by the taxpayers to kill Abia citizens.
Meanwhile, Governor Ikpeazu maintained that the two victims of COVID-19 reported in the state are septuagenarians of the opposite sex, adding that while one is from Umuahia North, the other one is from Ukwa West LGA.
He used the medium to charge every Abian to embrace the various precautionary measures, as he insisted that the use of face masks in the street was compulsory for all and sundry, while warning that defiant must be apprehended and arrested by the security operatives.
In a related development, the Lagos State government ordered the closure of five private clinics in the state over the same issues recently.
Source: Famous Reporters
