The Chief Medical Director, Nnamdi Azikiwe University Teaching Hospital (NAUTH), Nnewi, Anambra State, Professor Anthony Igwegbe, has debunked a news report that the hospital last Sunday recorded one death of Coronavirus victim.
He described the report as falsehood, saying the hospital had never recorded any single positive case for COVID-19 since the pandemic started, let alone death as all tests so far had returned negative.
The CMD said the hospital, under the coordination of Anambra State team of epidemiologists and the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), had been running tests on suspected patients all along with none of the samples returning positive.
He wondered why a case of death of a Coronavirus victim would be reported on the hospital without verification from the hospital management.
He maintained that the health institution had no case, or had it quarantined some of its doctors and nurses as contained in the report.
“NCDC has not reported any positive case recorded by the hospital and has not announced any death. It is the duty of the NCDC to make such things public and nothing like that is reported to the agency because we have no case,” he said.
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He explained that a patient was brought to the hospital around midnight at the weekend and died few hours later when a test had not been conducted on him.
He noted that there was no basis to conclude that the deceased died of Coronavirus since he was only a posthumous suspect.
The CMD said the hospital always worked in tandem with the NCDC through the state team of epidemiologists as far as the covid-19 issue was concerned and never did anything unilaterally.
He said the hospital would only engage its trained laboratory scientists to get specimen from a patient where the coordinating team and agency were engaged.
He said samples to confirm the status of a Coronavirus suspect were always taken to Irua Specialist Hospital, Edo State, Abakiliki, Ebonyi State or most recently, the newly approved testing centre at Accunalysis Diagnostic Centre, Nnewi.
