Ekiti moves to prosecute Katsina patient, isolates 10 Kano, Oyo returnees

The Ekiti State Government yesterday said that it would prosecute COVID-19 patient who brought the disease from Katsina State despite inter-state movement restriction.

The government also said that it had quarantined seven men who forcefully entered the state from Kano and three other females who came from Oyo State.The woman, who came from Katsina to visit her husband, a military man working in Ekiti State, was discovered to be COVID-19 positive after her husband alerted the task force when she started manifesting symptoms.

The Commissioner for Health, Dr. Mojisola Yaya-Kolade, who spoke in Ado-Ekiti yesterday, said the woman, who came to visit her husband at a time there was a lockdown, had committed an offence, which she said, flagrantly violated the law of the state.

“Though it was the husband who alerted us, but it was an offence against the state and the Ministry of Justice will take appropriate actions against her at the right time,” she said.

The commissioner added that the woman’s husband, who was the only main contact, had been quarantined for 14 days in line with the World Health Organisation’s guidelines.

Besides, the Senior Special Assistant to the Governor on Public Health, Dr. Jimlas Ogunsakin, revealed that seven people who returned to the state from Kano and three other females who forcefully entered Ekiti had been quarantined.

Meanwhile, the Ekiti State Government has directed security agencies manning borders and checkpoints to henceforth carry out rigorous checks on vehicles conveying essential commodities across the length and breadth of the state.

The Deputy Governor, Otunba Bisi Egbeyemi, in a statement yesterday by his Special Assistant (Media), Odunayo Ogunmola, said security agencies had been empowered to scrutinise the goods being transported into the state to look out for persons who may be hiding to enter illegally and to ensure that illegal goods are not brought into the state.

He, therefore, urged the people of the state to be more security conscious in their various localities and report strange faces and movements to the government and security agencies.

The deputy governor said that most of the COVID-19 cases recorded in the state were caused by non-residents who illegally entered the state. in violation of the orders of the government and appropriate authorities.