Benjamin Babine, Abuja
The reported death of an American of suspected coronavirus at the Afe Babalola University Teaching Hospital (ABUAD) has stirred panic among staff and students of the Ekiti-based school.
A group of 400 level medical students and other healthcare professionals are said to have been isolated because they had contact with the deceased while attending to him at the teaching hospital. Their roommates and close friends are also said to have been quarantined by the school authorities.
Sources in the school said the test results for the deceased has not returned but while it is being awaited, the students who are being isolated are also going to be tested.
Spokesperson of the varsity, Tunde Olofintila, said the multi-system hospital took some pro-active steps by ordering special precautionary kits from abroad in readiness for any eventuality.
“This enabled our highly-skilled and competent healthcare professionals to manage this particular case while other medical centres rejected the said American contrary to global best practices in the medical profession. We have also isolated those who had close contact with the victim while all the facilities used in managing the instant case have been fully disinfected.”
Regardless, students of the school have taken to the social media to lament the situation.
A contact from the school, who pleaded anonymity lamented: “You see now, ABUAD teaching hospital has been forming hard guy, hard guy, as the best multi-system hospital, now they have brought coronavirus for them to cure. Please everyone should beg and tell them we are no longer the best.
“As we are trapped in ABUAD, coronavirus came to join us. He is not a staff. He is an expatriate, referred from the state teaching hospital. He died before the result of his test came. But result was positive which makes him the first recorded case in Ekiti. All contacts with him have been quarantined.”