Chief Medical Director of the Nnamdi Azikiwe University Teaching Hospital (NAUTH), Nnewi, Anambra State, Professor Anthony Igwegbe, has refuted reports saying that a Covid-19 patient died at the hospital.
He called the report false, saying that the hospital had not recorded any single positive case for Covid-19 since the pandemic started let alone death as all tests conducted 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) has been running tests on suspected patients all this while with none of the samples returning positive.
Professor Igwegbe wondered why a case of death of a Coronavirus victim would be reported on the hospital without verification from the hospital management.
He insisted that the health institution had no case or quarantined any Doctor as well as Nurse at the hospital as contained in the report.
He further posited that NCDC has not reported any positive case recorded by the hospital and has not announced any death, noting that it is the duty of the NCDC to make such things public and nothing like that is reported to the agency because they had no such case.
According to him, the patient brought to the hospital around midnight at the weekend who later died few hours was not tested, therefore, 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 is concerned and never did anything unilaterally.
According to him, samples to confirm the status of a coronavirus suspect were usually taken to Irrua Specialist Hospital, Edo State; Abakiliki, Ebonyi State or most recently the newly approved testing centre at Accunalysis Diagnostic Centre, Nnewi.
