April 18, 2020
By Ijendu Iheaka
Abia Information Commissioner, Chief Okeiyi Kalu on Saturday evening announced the government had found Abia’s suspected COVID-19 index case, Vincent Prosper somewhere in Aba.
Kalu who made this known through a press release said that Abia State COVID-19 Medical Rapid Response (RR) Team have taken the young man into custody.
He said that Prosper is now at Amaachara, Umuahia COVID-19 Isolation Centre where a medical team has taken his sample for onward movement to the laboratory.
Kalu had on Friday through a press release announced the sneaking in of Vincent Prosper in the state from a neighbouring state noting that he had escaped from No 153 Azikiwe road where he was last seen.
He said that the suspect who falsely gave his name as Proper when he first contacted the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) had then given them his location.
Okeiyi said the young man had returned from Lagos and having manifested some signs of Coronavirus infection, and claiming to have had contact with a confirmed case in Akwa Ibom, he called NCDC to report his case.
The commissioner said when NCDC contacted Abia, Abia’s RR Team went to fetch Prosper at the house number he gave but he shut off his phone and left the venue when he spotted the team approaching.
“Our team immediately swung into action and called the number forwarded, took notes and asked the individual to isolate himself pending our arrival to take samples for testing.
“On arrival at the given location, he disappeared and was later to confess that he saw the ambulance and the fully kitted RR-team, lost courage, detested the possibility of being locked down and decided to switch off his phone and disappear into thin air.
“We continued to look for him quietly and at some point got him again on the phone and he gave us a wrong address at Azikiwe Road and a team was immediately dispatched to the location but did not find him there.
“At that point, we decided to enlist the services of a top security agency in the state to find him and also alerted members of the public yesterday regarding the situation in the hope that he would voluntarily come forward.
“He never did! But late last night, the security agency pinned his location down and this morning our RR-team stormed the location with security agents.
“And they took him into custody at our isolation facility at Amachara where we have now collected samples from him and dispatched to NCDC for testing”, he said.
Okeiyi said that Prosper is now cooperating and furnishing the medical team with necessary information which includes the truth that although he recently returned from Lagos, he had not visited Akwa Ibom since his return.
He said that the real names of the COVID-19 case is also not Vincent Prosper and that he actually called NCDC Control room to report his situation.
Kalu advised Abia residents to know that COVID -19 is not a death sentence stressing that nobody should stigmatize anybody with the disease.
He said people who discover they are showing symptoms of the disease should call 07002242362, promising that the state RR team would do what is expected of them.
He reiterated the fact that up till this moment of Prosper’s appearance, all samples of suspected cases from Abia had returned negative stressing that Abia would continue to handle related cases confidentially.
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