The Lagos State Government says 119 people with COVID-19 symptoms have been identified during a house-to-house search in communities.
Commissioner for Health, Akin Abayomi, during a media briefing on Tuesday in Ikeja, the state capital, said tests are being conducted to determine their status.
He said those identified to have COVID-19 will be taken to the isolation centres, in order to reduce the opportunities for transmission.
Abayomi noted that a total of 118,000 households have been reached in the active case search of possible COVID-19 cases.
He added that community search was activated to limit the spread of the disease in the state which has the highest number of COVID-19 patients in the country.
The exercise tagged “Community Active Case Search” was announced by the commissioner last week, and it is expected to run for an initial period of two weeks.
“We’ve embarked on an active case search in communities. The idea is to go to hot spots and go from door to door with our health personnel. So far, in the last two days, we’ve visited 118,000 households and we’re looking for the typical symptoms of COVID-19. We’ve identified about 119 people who have the symptoms that are suggestive of COVID-19,” he said.
“But let me remind you that COVID is one of the viruses that can cause respiratory symptoms. There are many viruses. So, the idea is to take samples from these 119 and analyse them and that would give us an idea of how much COVID-19 activity is happening in the communities.”
As at the time of filing this report, Lagos has recorded 192 confirmed cases of COVID-19 out of which 70 persons have been discharged and six deaths recorded.
