Coronavirus enters Kwara as authorities announce two cases

Health officials in Kwara State have recorded the state's first coronavirus cases after two people tested positive.

With 5 deaths and 234 cases announced by the NCDC, the two-weeks lockdown could yet be extended beyond Lagos, Abuja and Ogun States.

According to The PUNCH, Rafiu Ajakaye, Kwara's spokesman for Technical Committee on COVID-19 confirmed this on the telephone.

“One is the wife of a UNILORIN Teaching Hospital patient – a United Kingdom returnee, who died last Thursday, and the other is another UK returnee,” he said.

Ajakaye, who is also the Chief Press Secretary to Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq of Kwara State, said the official confirmation of their test results were received from the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control Test Centre in Ibadan on Monday.

However, the NCDC has yet to announce the results officially.

In an earlier statement, Ajakaye said the deceased person and his wife reportedly came into Ilorin on March 20, 2020, and went into self-quarantine without reaching out to the government or the technical committee.

He said, “On the 13th day of the self-quarantine, the husband suddenly had difficulties breathing after reportedly eating dinner and was rushed to the University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital. Efforts to resuscitate him proved abortive and he was pronounced dead.

“There is no fact at this moment to support suggestions that a male patient who died on Thursday night at the UNILORIN Teaching Hospital was a COVID-19 patient. The deceased, a Muslim, was promptly taken to Offa, his hometown, where he was interned on Thursday.”