Lagos Commissioner for Health, Akin Abayomi has announced that 179 persons isolated over coronavirus have been released.
According to the commissioner, the suspects who had contact with the index case were discharged after completing the mandatory 14 days in isolation with no symptom of the virus.
He said 40 of them were held in Ogun state while the rest were quarantined in Lagos.
Abayomi noted that the index case (Italian man) is still in quarantine.
“He is perfectly well now. We are only keeping him because he still has some secretion of the virus. Test shows that anytime from now, he may be negative,” Abayomi told newsmen on Friday.
“If he is negative, we will conduct another test within 48 hours after and if he is still negative, we will set him free.
“We are close to discharging the index case, we want to be sure he poses no danger to the society anymore.
“The remaining contact in Ogun and Lagos state remain symptom-free and they have exceeded 14 days surveillance which means that we have been able to interrupt the transmission between the index case and others. The index case and its threat to Nigeria has been eliminated.
“Those isolated in Ogun state have been discharged, in Lagos, we will not follow up the contacts again because none of them has developed symptoms. We are discharging all. We believe that by being extremely aggressive, we will curtail the outbreak,” Abayomi said.