Abdulrazaq Mungadi, Gombe
No fewer than eight of the 48 Almajiris who had been repatriated to Gombe from Kano have tested positive, the State has announced, as it awaits results of samples taken from Almajiri returnees from Bauchi, Nasarawa and Kaduna States.
The news was disclosed by the Gombe State task force on COVID-19 during a daily press conference on Thursday in Gombe. According to the State’s commissioner for education Dr Habu Dahiru, the returnees who were kept at the quarantine facility in Amada Akko local government area have been moved to an isolation facility for possible management of their cases, saying others who tested negative would be sent home after a second test to confirm their COVID-19 status.
Dr Dahiru said that the State was still expecting test results from returnees from other States.
Meanwhile, the State’s Commissioner for Health, Dr Ahmed Gana, disclosed that Gombe might soon start discharging patients in isolation as the first round of tests of post-isolation samples of patients have turned out negative.
“Many of them have come out to be negative and within the next 48 to 72 hours we should start having results of the second testing and that will be the first batch of people that we are going to discharge from the isolation facility,” he stated.
Explaining the methods adopted by the task force to engage and properly manage isolation centres in the state, Dr Gana said: “Diplomacy and engagement are the first, the second and third line of action and ultimately, if it doesn’t work, the fourth line might mean getting security operatives involved in tackling such issues, because this is in the interest of the health of the public.”
The commissioner disclosed that the task force has in the meantime commenced plans to counsel prospective COVID-19 cases before testing and confirmation to prepare them mentally on what to expect if their tests turn out to be either positive or negative.
“There are protocols for every case that is being put under isolation and we will adhere to those protocols,” Dr Gana said, adding that the task force is working hard to ensure that patients who are cleared for discharge get home as soon as possible.
The health commissioner further revealed that there are two confirmed COVID-19 cases that the task force is tracking who have not been taken into a State isolation facility.
“At the moment, we have two confirmed cases of COVID-19 that we are tracking, we have not been able to take them into the isolation facility,” he said.
One is a belligerent individual in Billiri local government area, and the other one has escaped from the State. The commissioner, however, assured that has been tracked to another State and “we have shared information with the authorities in that State and they are trying to reach out and get hold of that person.”