By John Shiklam
The Kaduna State Government has confirmed the sixth case of coronavirus in the state.
The Commissioner for Health, Amina Mohammed Baloni, disclosed this in a statement on Saturday.
She said the latest case is a male who worked as a gateman in the Mando area of Kaduna metropolis who recently returned from Lagos.
She said the victim had travelled travelled from Lagos to Kaduna on public transport and contacted the authorities as his symptoms worsened.
She said the patient had been evacuated to the Infectious Disease Centre in Kaduna.
The commissioner expressed concern that the latest case presents a nightmare scenario of possible community transmission of Covid-19 in the state as ‘’it is very difficult and complicated to trace the contacts of a patient who came from Lagos via public transport and has had some instance of local commuting since his arrival”.
She said: “The Kaduna State Rapid Response Team on COVID-19 is trying its utmost to get a list of contacts from the victim, so that they can be traced and monitored.
“He does not know who his fellow passengers from Lagos are. But the team is working to develop an idea of his local contacts in Kaduna, including any vehicle he commuted in and people he met at the hospital he visited and within his neighbourhood.
“It was in order to prevent and avert a scenario like this that the state government had consistently appealed to the public to practise social distancing and directed commercial buses to carry no more than two passengers per row.”
She said further that instances that were being recorded of people spreading Covid-19 from one state to another further reinforces the need to stop all inter-state travel.
“People need to stay in one place and help reduce the footprint of Covid-19,’’ she said.
