As the lockdown on Bonny Local Government Area imposed by Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, enters its second day, some officials of the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) and the Rivers State Ministry of Health have arrived Bonny to continue treatment of individuals who tested positive to COVID-19 in the area.

Additionally, they would also continue the contact tracing of the positive cases and line listing of the contacts identified in the course of the sampling done in the past weeks.

A top official of the NCDC, who preferred anonymity, disclosed this to Kristina Reports, noting that this was to ensure that the desire of the Governor and other stakeholders to checkmate the spread of the virus in Bonny LGA was achieved.

He further revealed that some of the positive cases were already receiving home-based care while others have been brought into the Isolation Centre where they were receiving treatment, adding that many of them were responding well to treatment.

He hinted that their contacts were being traced and line listed, while some have also been brought to the Isolation Centre for observation.  

According to him, some of the line listed cases have, however, exited surveillance thus no further contact was made with them as they have migrated from positive to negative.

He explained that these were individuals who were identified to have had contact with the positive cases but showed no symptoms after a period of 14 days and as such there was no need to test them, pointing out that if they had the virus within that period of time they would have switched from asymptomatic to symptomatic, but this did not happen..

The Bonny Isolation Centre was equipped and donated to the Bonny Local Government by the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas Limited (NLNG) as part of the company’s support for the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic that has been ravaging the global community.

The COVID-19 pandemic made landfall in Bonny LGA last month after samples taken from volunteers across medical facilities in the area returned two positive cases. Another 74 samples later returned 20 positive cases raising the figure to 22 positive cases.

Currently, according to a situation report on the official twitter handle of the Public Health Emergency Operations Centre (PHEOC) Nigeria in Rivers State, Bonny LGA ranks fourth in the disease distribution burden in the State with 58 positive cases, behind Obio/Akpor, Port Harcourt and Eleme LGAs.

In response to the report of the situation in Bonny LGA, Governor Wike on Sunday, June 21, 2020 imposed a total lockdown on the area.