Don’t treat coronavirus cases, it’s highly contagious ― FG warns private hospitals

Despite the claims of its readiness and preparedness to prevent the import and spread of Coronavirus in the past few weeks; the Federal Government admitted on Friday that Nigeria is experiencing an influx of imported Coronavirus cases into the country by travelers, including returning Nigerians.
The Minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire, who made this known at his regular updates on the disease in Abuja, however, warned private hospitals not to treat cases of Coronavirus, because it is highly contagious and very risky to their medical personnel and other patients.

Rather, the minister advised private hospitals to refer any suspected case of COVID-19 to the designated centers for diagnosis and treatment.


Specifically, he warned that being a highly contagious disease, private hospital do not have the required facilities and laboratory to handle it, and if they don’t have the protocol for treatment, they could easily infect their staff and other patients.
Dr. Ehanire said: “Private hospital, yes, we know that private hospitals offer 50 to 60 percent consultation to Nigerians which is a very powerful factor and very powerful partners in the healthcare system. We know that a good number of patients first of all report to the private centers.
“Most of the private centers don’t have the facilities to treat a highly infectious disease like that and they will definitely not have a laboratory for it. But in that case, we urge private hospitals if they have suspected cases, to refer them for diagnosis. If you can hold him in isolation while getting your result, fine otherwise you can refer them right away to the center for isolation of suspected cases; get the test done and let the patient be treated in a designated Centre.”

He added: “This is a highly and contagious disease which if you don’t have the protocol for treatment, you can infect your staff in the hospital, you can infect other patients and that will not be good. So, it is better to go to designated centres instead of running the risk of having local transmission within your own private facility.
“So, we don’t advise. Yes if you are a private practitioner and you get a patient who is suspicious or suspected of infection, send for testing and send to a designated treatment center.”
He stated further: “If we have any private hospital who wish to set up a facility for treatment, they would be inspected by relevant authorities to see if it’s good for safety and need to be accredited to handle disease as dangerous as this because this is one of national security concern.”
The minister, though admitted that there has been an influx of Coronavirus cases to Nigeria by travelers, he insisted that the country would not depart from its strategy of “self-isolation,” rather than considered “compulsory isolation,” of those coming into the country from the high-risk countries, and other infected countries.