By David Uka, Abakaliki
Ebonyi state government has confirmed 33 positive cases of coronavirus pandemicin the state
Governor David Umahi who announced this on a live broadcast on COVID-19 update at Executive council Chambers, old Government House Abakaliki stated that out of the 33 confirmed positive case , 6 persons were treated and discharged.
Umahi noted that there was no case recorded in any community yet, adding that all the cases were those intercepted at the borders coming from other states.
The Governor, who expressed worry over the rising number and trend of the coronavirus cases in the State lamented insufficient test kits from NCDC, stating that some of those at the holding centers were being held for 14days without being tested because of lack of test kits.
He called on the Federal Government and the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control to as a matter of urgency to provide regular COVID-19 test kits to States if the fight against the pandemic must be successful.
He emphasised that retaining these returnees at the holding centres for between 14 to 21 days without testing was counter productive, adding that discharging them without testing was worse than not retaining them at all
“Before now, until between the 26th of April to 20th of May, we had a total of 13 cases and six were discharged successfully.
“But on 22nd of May, we recorded nine new cases: six from Ishielu local government area, two from Ikwo, and one from Izzi Local government area.
“All the cases were from the people we collected at the borders, some from Delta, some Lagos and they sneaked into the State through the borders.
“There is no community infections in Ebonyi State yet.
“This is very disturbing because if the interstate lockdown from the various States are working, we will not have these cases.
“Another problem associated with this is that we are holding these people in our various holding centres in our communities, and yet we have issues with testing kits from NCDC (Nigeria Centre for Disease Control), though they finally gave some, which as at today are still not enough.
“So we wonder how we could be holding the people beyond 14 days without testing them.
“So the Federal Government has to do something about this.
“If they ask us to hold these people, isolate them from the society, we can’t even ask them to go to their houses and isolate because some people live up to five persons in one room in the rural areas.
“So the best thing to do as we are doing is to collect them at the borders, hold them according to the directive of NCDC and have them tested.
“But when there are no test kits, what do we do?”
The Governor informed that nine new cases were recorded on May 23 from Afikpo North local government area alone, while another two new cases came from Ohaukwu local government area on Sunday.
He further gave the breakdown of case among the local governments thus: “Afikpo North has nine cases; Izzi has eight cases; Ishielu has six cases; Ikwo has four cases; Ohaukwu has four cases; and Ohaozara has two cases.
“Ebonyi local government, Onicha local government and Ezza North have one case each.”