Coronavirus: No reason for travel ban for now – Minister

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Dr. Osagie E. Ehanire is a member of the Board of Trustees of Danjuma Foundation. He is an outstanding surgeon and holds an (MD) of college of Medicine, Ludwig Maximillians University, Munich. He also holds post graduate Diplomas from the Teaching Hospital of the University of Düsseldorf and Essen, Germany in the areas of Anaesthesiology, General Surgery, and Orthopaedic Trauma Surgery. Dr. Osagie has served on various medical boards both within and outside Nigeria. He was Senior Registrar, Clinical Instructor, University of Benin Teaching Hospital; Member of the old Bendel and Edo States Hospital Management Board; Consultant Surgeon, Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria; Clinical Course instructor, Fracture Internal Fixation course, BG Accident Hospital, Duisburg, Germany. He co-authored the orthopaedic book “The severely injured limb” edited

The minister of health, Dr. Osagie Ehinare, says federal government is not contemplating imposition of travel ban on travellers from other countries.

Ehanire made this known on Thursday in Abuja during a conference with the diplomatic community about measures being taken by the Federal Government to tackle the spread of the disease.

The minister maintained that there are only two confirmed cases in Nigeria, the index case and the second person who was a primary contact of the Italian.

The Italian citizen was confirmed to have the Coronavirus after series of tests were carried out by the Virology Laboratory of the Lagos University Teaching Hospital in February.

Earlier, The Herald reported that Professor Akin Abayomi, Lagos State Commissioner for Health, has announced that three persons are suspected to have been infected with the novel coronavirus disease in Lagos state.

The commissioner who announced this on his Twitter page on Thursday said that the persons suspected to be infected by the disease have all been placed under isolation in an Infectious Disease Hospital by an undisclosed private hospital in Yaba and are patiently waiting for the test results to confirm the infection.

Abayomi wrote: “We now have three suspected cases under isolation in our containment facility in Yaba. One from France, one from England and one from China. Their samples have been taken and results are been expected.”

Meanwhile, the commissioner has also lamented that two out of the 15 people on board the Turkish Airline which brought in the Italian who was infected with coronavirus have refused to present themselves.

He appealed to them to show up in other to avoid the case of spreading the disease around the country.

Abayomi said: “Right now, we have 13 of those 15 persons we were yet to reach as of Wednesday, between that yesterday, (Wednesday) and today,  13 persons have shown up while we are still missing two people.

“Those gone outside Nigeria, we are using the WHO to find them. Of that number in Lagos, we are looking for two on that flight.”

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