Nobody Under Our Management Has Died Of COVID-19, Abia Govt Insists

Following the announcement of 3 COVID-19 casualties in Abia by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, NCDC, the state government has insisted that no COVID-19 patient under its care has died.

The state’s Commissioner for Information, Chief John Okiyi Kalu made this known on Monday while fielding questions from newsmen in Umuahia, the state capital.

While stating that the state government will not dispute NCDC, Kalu said if a suspected COVID-19 patient dies before samples are analysed and turned in, the NCDC records such deaths as COVID-19 if the sample result tests positive.

The Commissioner said sample results collated in the state are dispatched to other states for analysis before results could be known, insisting that no active case under its care from any isolation centre in the state has died of the virus.

Kalu further said that with the new GenXpert diagnostic equipment recently delivered, the state will not need to send samples to Ebonyi, Irua, Owerri, or Abuja where its samples are tested.

He said the GenXpert newly delivered will be located in Aba while FMC Umuahia and Amachara will have the capacity to test when the GenXperts there are fully configured.