Coronavirus: Two foreigners in Nigeria test negative

The Lagos State Government on Monday said two foreign nationals suspected to be infected with coronavirus (COVID-19) have tested negative.

The Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, said the two foreign nationals were from a high-risk country in Asia.

The first coronavirus index case in Nigeria was confirmed by the Federal Ministry of Health last week.

An Italian national who arrived the country on February 25 tested positive to COVID-19 and has been isolated and subjected to treatment.

While giving an update on COVID-19 at Alausa on Monday, the governor said that “series of medical examination were carried out on the two suspected patients at the State’s bio-security facility.”

The foreign nationals, who were brought from Ogun State, did not show any sign of COVID-19 infection, Mr Sanwo-Olu said.

He also said that the condition of the Italian national who tested positive to the virus is improving, adding that the incident command centre was satisfied with the recovery of the infected patient.

Mr Sanwo-Olu added that the state government would maintain an open line of communication with the public on the progress being made in containing the virus.

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He advised members of the public to disregard any piece of information that did not come from an official source.

Meanwhile, Akin Abayomi, the Commissioner for Health in the state, said 100 persons have been identified to have been in contact with the Italian patient and have been quarantined.

He said the government had intensified its search for all persons that had interaction with the isolated patient. He said the centre is still investigating possible transmission of the virus having identified all the local contacts that interacted with the patient.

“There were 159 passengers in the aircraft and six people that came in contact with him at the airport,” he explained. “There are 25 people who came in contact with him at the factory; there were two drivers and an ambulance driver.”

“We have quarantined those identified so far at our medical facilities and some of them at home. We are calling them twice a day to check if they are okay. If they develop symptoms, we will bring them to our bio-security facility for test.”

Mr Abayomi said the government is making efforts to find the remaining passengers on the aircraft.