The Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, Ikeja, says it has placed three of its health workers on isolation after having contact with a patient who died of COVID-19.
The Chairman, Medical Advisory Committee of LASUTH, Dr Ibrahim Mustafa, made this known to the News Agency of Nigeria on Sunday in Lagos.
Mustafa said that two doctors and a nurse had contact with the patient, who later died on April 3 at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, Idi-Araba, Lagos.
He said that the patient was attended to in the vehicle that conveyed him to LASUTH, thus reduced his exposure to health workers and other patients.
“The patient did not divulge his travel history and underlying medical conditions to the health workers, but the health workers were suspicious based on his symptoms and warning to exercise caution while attending to patients.
“The health workers that attended to the patient took necessary precautions, but based on the advice of LASUTH Infectious Diseases Consultant, the doctor and nurses that had contact with the patient had been placed on isolation,” the CMAC chairman said.
Mustafa advised health workers to continue to maintain vigilance and ensure universal precaution while attending to patients.
The Lagos State Commissioner for Health, Prof. Akin Abayomi, had disclosed that the deceased patient was a 55-year-old Nigerian male who lived in Holland but returned to Lagos two weeks ago.
Abayomi said that the patient had a kidney transplant seven years ago, and was also diabetic.
According to him, the deceased was on strong immune suppression drugs for the kidney transplant, and was admitted at LUTH on the night of April 2, on the presumption of complications from the kidney transplant.
The commissioner noted that the patient did not provide a full account of his travel history or medical circumstances to the attending doctors in keeping with the global trend and to enable guided treatment for COVID-19 related vulnerability, due to severe underlying ill-health.
Abayomi said that the deceased, however, demonstrated some signs of an upper respiratory chest infection.
He said that the patient later tested positive for COVID-19, but died early hours of April 3 from a cardiac arrest.