By Kim Musa Ndoh
Plateau State government has refuted a claim by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, NCDC that the State has five additional cases of COVID-19 disease as at Friday, the 15th saying it was only new case that was recorded as the remaining four were repeated cases which were mistaken for fresh ones.
The State Commissioner for Health, Dr Nimkong Lar who briefed journalists alongside the Secretary to the Government of the State, Professor Danladi Atu, and State Commissioner for Information and Communication, Dan Manjang said so far Plateau has only 11 active cases of the disease and all patients are responding to treatment.
He noted that the attention of the NCDC has been drawn to the error with the belief that the needed correction would be effected.
He urged citizens to continue to obey safety directives stressing that although there has been no death and 10 patients, the of them being members of the same family had been treated and discharged, there is need for citizens to stay safe and avoid crowded places.
According to him, “Plateau recorded only one case of COVID-19 yesterday as against the five cases announced by the Nigeria Center for Disease Control NCDC as four of the results were repeated cases.
“We had only one positive case today (Friday) but the NDCD assigned five cases to Plateau, we have communicated them to correct the mistake. Right now, we have a total of 255 persons at the various quarantine centres in Heipang, Mangu, Shendam, Pankshin, Jos North and Bokkos.”
Secretary to the Government of the State, Professor Danladi Atu, however, expressed worry of continuous violation of government directives on border closure saying almost all cases in the State were imported from other places to the State.
Atu address that on Thursday alone, 46 were arrested for violating the restriction order as they were coming into the State from Abuja stating, “We are reinforcing capacity on border control because most of the pressure we are having is from the border. We are now going into aggressive enforcement to ensure compliance because we discovered motorcyclists are taking passengers into the State through bush paths.”
Commissioner for Information and Communication, Dan Manjang also reminded citizens to always use the face mask in public places and adhere to the federal government direction on daily curfew which the State has keyed into.