Abia State Governor, Okezie Ikpeazu, has explained why he was treated for COVID-19 infection in Abuja and not in COVID-19 facility managed by his state.
Ikpeazu has now explained why he received treatment in Abuja and not Abia state during a virtual interactive session with journalists in Umuahia on Sunday.
The Governor revealed that his first test that returned negative was conducted in a Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) facility in another state.
He explained that this was because Abia State was still putting together its own laboratories at the time.
Ikpeazu added that it was not until he arrived Abuja to seek further answers regarding his deteriorating health that a second test he took in Abuja returned positive.
The Governor explained;
I started having symptoms of something that looks to me like malaria fever in the evening and then some slight headache.
So my physician who is an Abian, gave me Lonart antimalarial and I had that for 3 days and after the third day the symptoms persisted and he now changed the course of treatment to Emal. He gave me shots of Emal and later Fansidar.
Meanwhile, as that was going on, he administered Covid-19 tests on me and at that moment we were taking our samples to Irrua in Edo State. The samples returned to indicate that I was negative for COVID-19. So I continued to treat malaria, I took malaria tests and they said I had Residual One Plus or something like that.
He stressed;
However after taking Fansidar, I couldn’t urinate again and that gave me a shock because I am a Biochemist and I understand the implications of not being able to move my waste through urine. So, we assembled 4 doctors from around Abia here who came to look at me and they recommended that I begin treatment at a hospital in Abia known as Mecure.
I went there and had my first run of dialysis, as they diagnosed, I also did 3 scans and they looked at my organs. While they were working on these, my ill health was deteriorating and therefore I started to seek further opinion of other doctors elsewhere. And in embarking on that journey, I went with 3 doctors from Abia and a 4th joined us in Abuja.
Ikpeazu added;
Since we had already eliminated the possibility of Covid-19 infection based on the result from the test centre in Edo State, my sojourn to Abuja was in further diagnosis of what the situation could be.
He said a second COVID-19 test was conducted again in Abuja, which returned positive.
The Governor said he decided to commence treatment immediately considering the deteriorating state of his health, instead of wasting time returning to Abia state.
