Officials managing the COVID-19 pandemic in Borno State said on Monday they had ‘found’ two patients who were declared missing yesterday after testing positive for coronavirus.
The Borno committee for the prevention and control of COVID-19 had announced the two patients fled after testing positive for the virus.
However, one of the patients, a 45-year-old woman, whom the committee claimed fled, said she did not flee.
The woman later showed up at the isolation centre threatening to sue the government for defaming her name. She said she was never contacted after her blood sample was taken.
The committee had to tender an apology to the woman, a senior medical officer in Maiduguri.
Confirming the development at the daily briefing of the COVID-19, the state commissioner of health, Salisu Kwayabura, said the second missing COVID-19 patient “was later tracked down at his home where he was found to be critically ill.”
“The second patient, a 24-year-old male, was traced to his home in Gwange II, Maiduguri at about 2 a.m. and moved to hospital isolation, hours after he was at large.”
He said, “a combined team of health surveillance and investigation team, backed by a police escort traced the patient who was in a critical state at his family house.”
“He was immediately moved on a stretcher and is on a ventilator at an isolation center,” he said.
Mr Kwayabura said the other patient, “reported herself to the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital following which she received apologies from laboratory officials at the UMTH and Borno’s commissioner of health.”
“The apology became necessary after she protested that she did not receive communication from the COVID-19 lab at UMTH or officials of the state response team asking her to come for hospital isolation even though she had been on self-isolation (quarantine) since her sample was taken for the test due to exposure to a confirmed case days back.
“Even though, the patient was on self-isolation since her sample was collected, a surveillance and investigation team has been deployed to assess risks of infection in line with the protocol of dealing with epidemics and pandemics.”
He said with their return, “all COVID-19 patients in Borno State are now fully accounted for.”
Borno had its first index case on April 19.
Since then, the state has recorded 30 confirmed cases of which 28 of them are still active, while two, including the index have died.