BY LEVI JOHNSON
The Federal Government yesterday said the identity of the Italian with the Coronavirus in the country is kept secret because it’s against medical ethics to do so without his consent.
Osagie Ehanire, the Minister of Health who spoke with journalists after the Federal Executive Council meeting yesterday, said Italian case was different from the index case of Ebola
In the case of the Ebola he noted, Patrick Sawyerr name was mentioned because he died.
”But in the case of the Italian who tested positive to the virus on arrival in Nigeria on February 26, 2020, is yet to be publicly identified because it was unethical,” he explained.
Recall an Italian contractor flew into Nigeria from Milan became sub-Saharan Africa’s first confirmed coronavirus patient on Friday, stoking concern that an outbreak on the continent could overwhelm already strained health care systems.
The patient, a young man, had no symptoms when he landed in Lagos, travelled 60 miles north to the cement factory where he works and developed a fever there, a Nigerian health commissioner said to reporters.
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The appearance of the first case in Lagos — a city of 20 million people and the economic capital of Africa’s most populous nation — set off fear, rumours and panicked buying of hand sanitizer and face masks. It also posed a test for the Nigerian medical system, which like others in Africa, has been preparing for the virus to arrive for weeks.
