OGUN DISCHARGES THREE MORE COVID-19 PATIENTS, THREE UNDER ACTIVE MONITORING.{PHOTO}.#PRESS RELEASE.

     The Ogun State Government has announced the discharge of three patients, in addition to the earlier three, from its COVID-19 Isolation Centre, with three others still under active monitoring.

The Ogun State Commissioner for health, Dr. Tomi Coker, who made this known at the COVID-19 Situation Room of the Ministry of Health, Oke- Mosan, Abeokuta, said that the Ministry had also been able to trace about 210 contacts of patients, out of which 100 had been discharged.

Coker further disclosed that the first State-fully funded molecular laboratory has been installed and was only awaiting the accreditation of the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), so that the laboratory would help the State to scale up its testing capacity to 1,000 per day, as the Government would also be taking possession of another laboratory.

She added that plans are also in top gear to have testing booths installed in high-risk communities which border Lagos State, as well as have mobile laboratories drive through streets.

"We will encourage people to come forward and get tested, especially during this lockdown," she said.

She added that the State now engages sixty experts, with a mandate to move from door to door with laptops and installed self-assessment tools, to engage the people. These tools, she said, would help identify their health status.

"Our first focus would be going into the communities where we found patients who are positive, because what we are thinking is: are we actually missing contacts we haven't tested? That will be our area of priority. But we will also be going into communities where we haven't seen people that have been positive, because we have to have an oversight of the entire State.

"Our priority will be border communities with Lagos, like Ado-Odo/Ota, Obafe/Owode, Ifo, Sagamu...even, we are looking at Odogbolu as well. They all border Lagos. We will be looking at these communities first and we move inward," she said.

The Commissioner, while encouraging the people to continue to observe social distancing, said that they should continue to adhere to wearing face masks, observe respiratory hygiene and use soap and water to wash hands often.