Lagos state authorities have identified over 100 people who may have had direct contact with the Italian man diagnosed with the novel coronavirus in Nigeria, the Lagos state health commissioner said on Sunday.
The man arrived in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital, on Feb. 24 from Milan on a Turkish Airlines flight that had a connection in Istanbul. He travelled the following day to Ogun state and was in the country for almost 48 hours before showing any symptoms of the virus and committed to quarantine.
Asked in a telephone interview about the number of people Nigerian authorities had been in touch with who may have had contact with the man, Lagos state Health Commissioner Akin Abayomi said: “It is around 100 people but that number is increasing every minute.”
The Italian man, who is being treated at a hospital in the Yaba district of Lagos, works as a vendor for a cement company, Lafarge Africa Plc in the southwestern state of Ogun.
The company issued a statement on Sunday in which it said its cement production lines remain open. It said 39 people who were in direct contact with the man had been quarantined.
The case, which is the first in sub-Saharan Africa, has prompted fears the virus could spread quickly in a region where health systems are already overburdened with cases of malaria, measles, Ebola and other infectious diseases.
