1st August, 2020
By Kazeem Ugbodaga
Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu on Saturday disclosed that 10,835 people have recovered from Coronavirus within the communities and have been discharged.
He disclosed this while giving update on COVID-19 situation in Lagos at the State House, Marina on Saturday.
The governor said since the beginning of the virus, Nigeria had seen more than 43,000 infections, and a significant disruption of social, religious, educational and economic life, like every other part of the world.
“As at yesterday, Friday, July 31, 2020, Lagos State has had a total of 15,150 confirmed cases of Covid-19, with 10,835 persons who have recovered and been discharged. We have sadly now lost 194 persons to the virus.
“This leaves us with 1,813 active cases in community and 96 under management across various isolation centers in the State. Lagos State remains the epicenter of the pandemic in Nigeria, but we also, I am pleased to say, have set a national example in terms of the efficiency of our testing, tracing, treatment, and our partnerships with the private sector and the Federal Government. Most of our patients in Lagos recover under our supervision,” he said.
The governor said Lagos now had two pathways through which confirmed cases were managed: either through
Home-Based Strategy, or in designated COVID-19 Care Centres.
Sanwo-Olu stated that those people in the Home Care category were being supported medically with COVID Care Packs, and psychologically through counselling teams available via Call Centre 08000CORONA.
“In addition, these individuals are given access to our tele-medicine services through the State-owned EKOTELEMED, and are also visited weekly by our doctors to ensure that they are recovering adequately and in a timely fashion.
“In terms of our Isolation Centers, we have since, last night, shut down our Eti-Osa Isolation Center and will be shutting down our Agidingbi Isolation Center and moving all the patients there to our soon to be commissioned Indoor Center.
“Furthermore, our Infectious Diseases Hospital in Yaba is now also gradually being reverted back to its status as a hospital to cater to all forms of infectious diseases. The Ca-Covid dedicated tent on the IDH grounds will however remain strictly for Covid-19 cases,” he added.
The governor disclosed that in June, the government further expanded COVID-19 testing capacity in Lagos with the accreditation of seven private laboratories and that in the week ending July 26, 2020, Lagos had successfully tested close to 9,000 samples, across the public and private sector laboratories, a 50% increase from the approximately 6,000 samples tested in each of the preceding two weeks.
“We believe that this increase in testing will lead to an increase in the number of daily confirmed cases of the Virus in Lagos State. This is a welcome development, since our capacity to contain the pandemic depends significantly on how successful we are in identifying all the existing cases.
“I must however also mention that we have seen a general decrease in positivity rates in Lagos State over the past two weeks, which, combined with the increase in testing numbers, paints a very encouraging picture of the
outcome of our response strategy. We will continue to fine-tune our efforts and strategies to build on our successes and close any existing gaps,” he said.