Nigeria

Coronavirus: Cross River announces plan to quarantine visiting NCDC team

Wednesday, April 29, 2020 at 5:16 PM by Oluwatobi Bolashodun

- Cross River state government has announced plans to quarantine NCDC officials sent to collect samples in the state

- This was disclosed by Betta Edu, the chairman of the state COVID-19 taskforce team and commissioner for health

- The commissioner noted that Cross River state is more interested in the prevention of the deadly coronavirus

In anticipation of the arrival of Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) staff in Cross River, the state government has said it would quarantine the team for 14 days before they start collecting samples.

This was revealed by Betta Edu, the Cross River state commissioner for health and chairman of the state COVID-19 taskforce team, on Wednesday, April 29, in Calabar.

According to Edu, the state government is more interested in the prevention of the deadly virus than managing it, adding that the policy of no mask no movement has helped in achieving a lot.

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The commissioner said: “As a state, we have shut down borders and all land entrances to prevent the spread of the virus. It is not compulsory that all states will be affected.

“The state government is going all it can to ensure that it remains COVID-19 free. The no mask no movement policy has helped a lot in achieving the fight against the pandemic.”

As of Wednesday, April 29, Cross River remains one of the three states in the country yet to record a case of the deadly coronavirus.

The commissioner went on to note that the state is interested in testing any suspected case of COVID-19 that meets the requirements on NCDC.

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Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi state has dismissed claims by the director-general of the NCDC, Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu, that states which are yet to record cases of COVID-19 are either negligent in testing and tracing or actively hiding the disease within their territories.

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The Kogi government in a statement on Wednesday, April 29, said the state being one of the only three states in the country yet to record any case of COVID-19 found the comments by the NCDC DG distressing.

The governor in a statement through Kingsley Fanwo, the commissioner of information, said the self-assessment app hosted at kogicovid19.gov.ng around the NCDC was functioning.

In a related development, Governor Aminu Waziri Tambuwal of Sokoto has confirmed the death of three COVID-19 patients in the state.

Tambuwal, who made the disclosure in a statewide broadcast, according to a statement by his special adviser media and publicity, Muhammad Bello, said the deceased had underlying sicknesses, including diabetes, asthma, and high blood pressure respectively.

He said: "It is with a heavy heart that I have to break this news of the results of tests carried out by the National Center for Diseases Control (NCDC) at the laboratory here in Usman Danfodio University Teaching Hospital (UDUTH), whereby 18 tests were carried out."