Fresh Details Emerge About Nigeria's first coronavirus case

An Italian man who has been confirmed to be Nigeria's first coronavirus case after arriving from Milan was in the country for almost two full days before being isolated, travelling through Lagos and visiting another state.
The case has prompted a scramble by authorities in Africa's most populous country who are now trying to trace everyone who arrived on the same flight as the patient and identify the places he visited before going to the hospital.

We have started working to identify all the contacts of the person since he entered Nigeria and even those who were with him on the aircraft," Health Minister Osagie Ehanire told reporters on Friday in Nigeria's capital, Abuja.

The Italian, whose country is the worst-hit in Europe by the coronavirus outbreak, arrived on February 24 on a Turkish Airlines flight that had a connection in Istanbul, Akin Abayomi, Lagos state commissioner for health, told reporters.

After spending the night in a hotel near the airport, he arrived in the neighbouring state of Ogun on February 25 at his place of work. 

He stayed there until he developed a fever and body aches on the afternoon of February 26, Abayomi said.

Health practitioners with his company then contacted biosecurity authorities, who transferred him to a containment facility in Yaba, Lagos state.

"It was very astute of the medical practitioners in that facility to keep him overnight in an isolated environment," Abayomi said.

Ehanire said the infection was confirmed on February 27 by the Virology Laboratory of the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, part of the Laboratory Network of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, and that the man is now quarantined but doing well.

As well as being the first in Nigeria, the patient is the first confirmed coronavirus case in sub-Saharan Africa.

Turkish Airlines did not immediately comment on the case. There are no confirmed cases in Turkey.

The World Health Organization has said it already has experts on the ground in Nigeria, which it identifies as one of 13 "high priority" countries in Africa.

BREAKING: Western Diplomats Warn Of Coronavirus Explosion In Nigeria As European Countries Evacuate Citizens

Some Western diplomats on Friday warned that with the current and abysmal way the Nigerian Government was handling the Coronavirus outbreak, the number of infections could witness a significant rise in the coming weeks. 

Already, Nigeria has 81 confirmed cases and one recorded death of the pandemic. 

According to the diplomatic community, infections could rise to more than 10,000 in the coming weeks as there are at least 5,000 persons, who had come in contact with infected persons in Nigeria already. 

This category of persons, it was gathered, had gone ahead to mingle with thousands of others in the society without realising that they had the virus.

"This is the real danger. A lot of people who have had contacts with original carriers of the virus don't even know they have the ailment and have in fact gone ahead to mingle with hundreds and thousands of others in the society, spreading the virus further.

"From information we have in the diplomatic community, there could be an explosion of confirmed infections in the coming weeks. It is going to disrupt a lot of things," a senior diplomat attached to one European high commission in Nigeria told SaharaReporters on Friday.

Echoing the same sentiment, another diplomat, whose country has provided technical support to African nations battling the spread of the virus, said the situation in Nigeria was dire because the number of untested infections far outweighed those examined by government agencies. 

So far, only around 200 persons have been tested for Coronavirus in Nigeria due to the unavailability of testing kits.

Though Chinese billionaire, Jack Ma, has donated testing kits and protective items to Nigeria and other African countries to help combat the virus, hundreds of potentially infected persons are yet to be examined in Nigeria, increasing the risk of an epidemic in the West African state. 

"We could be having tens of thousands of confirmed cases across Nigeria in a few days from now. 

"There are thousands of people with the virus already on the loose in the country and many of this people cannot be traced. They have taken this pandemic into every nook and cranny of this country. 

"I think Nigeria must act fast to avert a full-blown war," the diplomat said on Friday, adding that Western countries will continue to provide technical support to help Africa and the rest of the world conquer the virus. 

Already, there have been reported cases of people being asked to self-isolate after reporting to health agencies of having symptoms of the virus. 

Without proper monitoring and stringent measures to ensure such persons do not expose others to infection in case they have the virus, thousands of individuals in this category have gone on with their daily activities and opened up the chance of an epidemic in the country. 

Unwilling to take chances, some Western countries are already evacuating their citizens from Nigeria and other African countries. 

For example, an Air France flight on Thursday moved 260 Europeans from Nigeria to France to prevent them from being infected with the virus. 

This came after the Nigerian Government granted a one-week permission to Air France and KLM to evacuate Europeans from the country following the continued spread of the pandemic.

Also on Thursday, British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Ms. Catriona Laing CB, said the mission was exploring available options to send staff and their families back to the United Kingdom.

This was occasioned by projections by experts and top diplomats that the Coronavirus pandemic could explode in Nigeria and other African countries in the coming days.

But according to the World Health Organisation, Nigeria and other African countries battling the virus must conduct more tests to portray the true picture of things and avert a major crisis.