Akwa Ibom discharges five COVID-19 patients

The Akwa Ibom government has discharged five coronavirus patients from the Ibom Specialist Hospital isolation centre in Uyo. The Commissioner for Health, Dr. Dominic Ukpong, who made disclosure yesterday in the capital, added that the affected persons had fulfilled the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control’s (NCDC) standard protocol of testing negative twice.

His words: “I want to announce to you the result of the 30 cases that we sent for testing and the final result came yesterday (Monday), and out of the lot, only one came positive. The rest were negative

“What we are doing today (yesterday) is to discharge those patients that were tested negative. We have just discharged five of them. “All of them will like to be anonymous, but you have seen them. We don’t want to publish their photographs and their names, but they have just been discharged. It is not easy to be confined for sometimes for upward of 22 days, sometimes up to 30 days while we are testing you to be sure that you are negative. “I am happy to announce that COVID-19 is not a death sentence. That the government is doing a lot to make sure no one dies.”

According to him, the professors managing the patients did well in their management approach. “There are many areas we have to prevent this infection from coming back to us,” he added.Ukpong said for now, only one active case was in isolation.

The commissioner debunked media reports insinuating that 50 medical personnel were waiting for testing at the University of Uyo Teaching Hospital (UUTH), adding that one of those discharged was an employee of the medical institution.

He went on: “As a matter of fact, I communicate with the Chief Medical Director (CMD) of University of Uyo Teaching Hospital regularly. I was there yesterday (Monday) to inaugurate the isolation and treatment centre with ICU. So, we cooperate and work together.

“So, anyone that meets the criteria of NCDC, we test them.The government official advised residents to adhere to NCDC’s protocol of personal hygiene, regular washing of hands with soap and running water as well as use of alcohol-based hand sanitiser and observance of social distancing.