A six-week-old baby and mother are among the five new cases of coronavirus confirmed by Nigerian government.
Osagie Ehanire, Nigeria’s Minister of Health, Wednesday said the five new cases of Coronavirus involve two Nigerians and three foreigners, showing four recorded in Lagos and one in Ekiti.
“Of the five new positive cases, three arrived from the United States, while two came in from the United Kingdom,” the minister said at a briefing in Abuja on Wednesday.
He explained that two of the three-week old from the US are Nigerians; a mother and child making the six-week-old baby the youngest COVID-I9 patient, and the third is an American national, who crossed the land border. He is the first COVID-I 9 case not arriving by air.
The two cases from the UK are foreigners, he added.
As part of preparedness, the minister recalled that the Presidential Task Force for the Control of Coronavirus (COVID-19), announced the following interventions on 17th of March to include Prohibition of all travel by public servants, Suspension of the visa on arrival policy till further notice and a firm travel advisory against non-essential travel to high burden countries, especially in view of the number of Nigerians who arrived from the US and Europe and diagnosed in the past 48 hours with coronavirus infection.
The requirement is that all persons returning from overseas self-isolate for observation for 14 days, even if they feel well.
He noted that NCDC would disseminate information on the practice, Supervised self-isolation, including testing, of persons returning from nations with community transmission of more than 1,000 cases cumulatively, for 14 days by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Port Health Services.
“Federal Government will restrict entry to Nigeria of persons from the listed high burden countries with effect from Friday, March 20, for a period of four weeks,” he said.
