The governor of Abia State, Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu on Tuesday announced the indefinite closure of the private hospital where the two index cases of the coronavirus in the state were receiving medical attention before their referral to the Federal Medical Centre (FMC) Umuahia.
Ikpeazu in Press Conference in Umuahia, the state capital, added that all the medical staffers and patients on admission at the yet-to-be-named private in the hospital would remain quarantined until the result of their samples returns back from the NCDC center.
Recall that the state recorded two index cases of COVID-19 on Monday, April 20 which has sent jitters down the spines of many residents of the state who have expressed fear over possible indefinite lockdown of the state over the new development.
The Governor gave the ages of the two index cases as70 and 72 years old, adding that they had underlying medical ailment ranging from “High blood pressure, diabetes, stroke, and heart failure”.
He pointed out that the state has started massive contact tracing of all persons who had contact with the index cases in Ikwuano, Ukwa West, and Umuahia North Local Government Areas of the state.
Ikpeazu insisted that the sit-at-home order and border closure in the state remains bounding, adding that the state would treat anybody flouting the order as sabotage, adding that mobile Courts would be set to bring offenders to book.
He said, “The two index cases has made it clear that COVID-19 is real and we had provided two isolation centres in Aba and Umuahia with the capacity taking about 50 patients with ventilators and oxygen to care for COVID-19 patients before now.
“We are also lucky that the Federal Medical Centre in Umuahia has an additional isolation centre to care for patients of COVID-19 pandemic.
“These two index cases have placed an additional burden on us to enforce all the Nigeria centre for disease control guidelines to prevent the spread of Coronavirus.
“Since the index cases are aged people with no history of traveling outside the state in recent times, we suspect community infection unless our studies prove otherwise.
“We, therefore, urged our people not to panic, but they should wash their hands regularly with soap and running water, use hand sanitizers, wear face masks and maintain social distancing in the public and stay at home”.
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He urged all the security agencies guarding the state borders to put extra effort to their duties and see it as a task to protect the state and its citizens.
