By Edith Igbokwe
No fewer than 75 persons sampled in the first week of community tracking through sampling centres programme of the Lagos State government are waiting to be notified of their COVD-19 status.
Reliable sources at the Ajibulu Primary Health Care centre, Oshodi, the designated centre for sampling for the Oshodi-Isolo Local Government Area, said the centre received only 9 requests when the programme took off on Monday.
The figure rose the next day to 20 and has remained stable allaying the fears of officials of possible spike in the infection in the local government.
The centre is also responsible for Isolo and Ejigbo local council development areas carved out of the LGA to bring government closer to the grassroots.
According to the Commissioner for Health, Professor Abayomi at a recent briefing, there were seven persons identified as positive to the pandemic.
He was briefing reporters on the success of the community transmission tracking programme executed as a 10-day intervention to fish out persons being treated for symptoms related to COVID-19 in hospitals and homes.
The intervention made a hefty harvest of 107 persons and for the first time shot up the number of persons infected with the virus.
Explaining the procedure, sources at the PHC said the prospective patient needs to call the dedicated numbers of the COVID-19 management centre and book appointment for sampling. This, we learnt, is to avoid over-crowding of the centre by persons who want to test .
The centre, which is one of the 20 set up by the Lagos state Government to track community spread of the virus, is expected to boost efforts in a location like Oshodi -Isolo sharing boundaries with the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, considered the entry point of the index case of the virus in Nigeria.
Though COVID -19 is spreading at alarming rate in Lagos State as more positive cases are confirmed in various communities daily, in Oshodi-Isolo, apart from the seven cases earlier reported, there has not been any other case recorded in the last one week.
In a chart illustrating how the COVID-19 infection is increasing in the state, Lagos Mainland Local Government is currently topping the chart with 107 cases. Findings show that the most agonising aspect of the growth is that it represents over 150 per cent in just nine days.
Next to Lagos Mainland Local Government is Eti-Osa Local Government where the infection rose from 57 per cent to 85 per cent in nine days. The two local governments are followed closely by Ikeja Local Government with 41 cases and Alimosho 15, with a cluster of infections.
The chart, released by the Lagos State Commissioner for Health, Prof Akin Abayomi, captured the confirmed cases by LGAs in the state from 8th of April to 18th of April, 2020, and also reveals that three Local Governments including Ajeromi/Ifelodun, Epe and Ojo have not recorded confirmed cases.
According to the chart, other local governments where confirmed cases have been recorded include; Ikorodu 4, Ifako-Ijaiye 2, Ibeju Lekki 1, Badagry 2, Apapa 2, Amuwo- Odofin 5, Agege 1, Surulere 6, Shomolu 8, Oshodi /Isolo 7, Mushin 7, Lagos Island 2, and Kosofe 11.
As at the time of filing this report on Sunday, the total number of COVID-19 cases confirmed by the NCDC in Lagos was 173.
Earlier, the State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu had set up pandemic response team in each local government while each local council in Oshodi-Isolo also set up a seven – man team to handle contact-tracing of individuals suspected to have arrived newly from high-risk countries.
Explaining how residents reporting symptoms were managed, the Medical Officer of Health, Ejigbo LCDA, Dr. Olawale Agosu said the reports were followed by a visit by the epidemiologists to the residence concerned where initial tests were carried out to validate the symptoms before evacuation to the isolation centre at Yaba.
Since the day operation commenced at Ajibulu centre, people’s compliance with the procedures has been increasing as the number of ready-to-test residents keeps increasing on daily basis, ECHONEWS gathered.
One of the Doctors, Dr. Baqiah Nojimudeen-Yesufu who spoke to ECHONEWS confirmed the level of compliance in the local government.
According to her, initially, about nine people came for their sample to be collected for the test but the figure later rose to about 20 per day.
She explained that individuals who wants to be tested are expected to call any of the contact numbers 08035387653,07032165166, 07081896092, 08038291993, 080374117795 before visiting the centre to ascertain the availability of space, stating that people could be attended to only strictly by appointment.
The centre, as she said, is opened only during the week days – Monday to Friday from the hours of 8am to 4pm for sample collections.
Dr. Yesufu, who is the Secretary of the pandemic response team in Oshodi-Isolo and the Medical Officer of Health, Isolo LCDA, confirmed that there has not been record of any positive case in the local government so far as she informed that it takes three days for the result of any sample collected to be ready.
She said: “When people give us call, we collect their details and book an appointment with them before they can visit the center for their samples to be collected for a test.
“When they visit, we collect their samples to be sent to Nigerian Center for Disease Control (NCDC) for test and when the results are ready, a call will be made across to the individuals to get their results. Normally, the result should not take more than 24 hours to be ready but the volume of the samples collected and the logistics involved make it last for about three days to a week before it is ready.”
She further clarified that NCDC is in charge of taking up any case of positive result that emanates from the samples tested, adding that there is no counselling unit for any case of COVID-19 positive patients in Ajibulu centre.
She also noted that the center is not opened for the treatment of emergency cases that need immediate attention and that such cases should be taken to other PHC or hospital for proper attention.
“The active case search in this centre is to identify people with symptoms to enable them qualify for screening to know the number of positive COVID-19 patients in the local government area.
“Persons with symptoms are then sampled to determine whether they are positive or negative,” she said.
She emphasised that samples taken at the centre are sent to the NCDC Emergency Operation Centre in the state, where they are tested and results communicated to the concerned people, privately.