Lagos State recorded another death from coronavirus, the commissioner for health in the state said yesterday.
Akin Abayomi, who gave the update via Twitter, said the deceased was a 66-year-old Briton who arrived in Nigeria on March 17.
“Lagos recorded another COVID-19-related death; a 66-year-old Briton who travelled from India via Dubai to Lagos on 17th of March, 2020. This brings to 3, the total number of deaths from COVID-19 in Lagos State,” he tweeted.
Lagos has recorded three deaths from coronavirus in the space of one week. The latest fatality means the total number of deaths so far in Nigeria has risen to seven.
The first death in the state was a 55-year-old patient who died at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) last Friday while being treated for renal infection, with the doctors unaware that he had coronavirus.
The second death was recorded last Saturday when a 36-year-old Nigerian male who tested positive to the virus died at a private facility.
As at press time, there were 130 confirmed cases of coronavirus in the state, with 93 active cases, 32 discharged cases, two evacuated cases and three deaths.
Meanwhile, the Katsina State medical team handling the COVID-19 pandemic has identified 35 persons who had contact with the deceased index case, a medical doctor, proprietor of a private hospital in Daura.
Governor Aminu Bello Masari, who gave the figures when he briefed the media yesterday, said the suspects have been placed under quarantine and their samples taken to the NCDC laboratory in Abuja to check their COVID-19 status.
Reports said the late doctor attended to an unidentified number of patients in his hospital when he returned from Lagos, before he took ill.
“The medical team is tracing more of his patients to identify those he had contact with just before the doctor fell sick,” Masari said.