Over 2,000 COVID-19 patients in Lagos avoiding isolation centres

Akin Abayomi, commissioner for health in Lagos, says more than 2,000 patients who tested positive for COVID-19 have not turned up at the isolation centres.

He stated this while giving an update on the COVID-19 situation in the state.

Abayomi provided details of how the state has fared so far, adding that the state’s COVID-19 response team is monitoring more than 6,000 patients in communities.

“6,259 of the cases monitored in communities by #COVID19Lagos response team have either fully recovered or positively responding to treatments,” he wrote in a tweet.

“365 of the cases are currently under isolation in public and private care centres. However, 2,430 active cases in the communities are yet to turn up for admission in care centres either due to fear of stigmatisation or preference for home care treatments.

In May, the commissioner had expressed concern over the attitude of COVID-19 patients who make themselves unavailable after testing positive for the virus.

“There is also a situation that we experience; when we test people, sometimes they find it difficult to find them. The ambulances will go into communities, people will flee their homes, and they make it difficult for us to find them,” he had said.

However, about four weeks later, Abayomi said the state may run out of bed spaces if it keeps recording high number of cases.

“If we carry on with the rate of positive testing that we are obtaining, we’re going to run out of isolation beds in our established isolation facilities,” the commissioner said at a press briefing on June 8.

“Therefore, we are projecting. If we keep getting 150, 200 positives everyday, in another two or three weeks, even though we’re opening new isolation centres all the time, in time, we’re going to run out of beds.”

As part of efforts to address the projected shortage, more isolation centres have been established in the state, with the most recent being a 150-bed isolation centre unveiled at the Mainland Infectious Disease Hospital, Yaba, last month.

Meanwhile, as of July 4, 2020, according to the update by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Lagos has risen to 11,045.