Anambra State Commissioner for Health, Dr Vincent Okpala has said the missing COVID-19 index case in the state has been found.
The index case was declared missing on April 11 with the state government ordering the closure of private and public motor parks to prevent the patient from traveling out of the state. The patient came into the state from Lagos and tested positive to the Coronavirus after showing symptoms.
The Commissioner, who spoke on the recent development on Tuesday, said the COVID-19 response team in the State searched for the index case’s contacts from 8:00pm to 3:00am after the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) contacted the State Government to notify them of the confirmed case in Anambra.
The commissioner also revealed that 29 contact persons comprising health workers, relations and business associates of the index case had been traced and quarantined.
He added that;
We have 29 persons who are contacts of the index case. They include medical personnel at the hospital where he was being previously managed, his relatives and business associates. Those traced are being closely monitored.
While narrating their search ordeal, Okpala said;
I went with the team to places I ordinarily would not go at that time of the night and I knocked on many doors to wake people up from sleep to ask about the individual. The index case left the hospital when he should not have left.
The commissioner explained that the standard practice was that suspects awaiting result of their samples would be kept in check, “but this man eloped even before the result was out and when I called the doctor managing him, he told me the man was not in the hospital. We had to go look for him.”
He said the index case is now being treated at an isolation centre and was receiving the best treatment.
