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Nigeria had been spared for 57 days when the outbreak of the novel coronavirus disease, also called COVID-19, was first recorded in Wuhan, China on December 31, 2019.

Even as the disease ravaged China and Asian countries such as Hong Kong and Singapore, as well as America and Europe, infecting thousands of people, Africa’s most populous country was a mere spectator.

But the story changed for Nigeria on February 27, 2020 when a 44-year-old Italian businessman who arrived in Lagos from Milan, Italy tested positive for the coronavirus.

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The Italian, a consultant for Lafarge Africa Plc, was among 149 passengers aboard a Turkish Airlines flight which arrived at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport on February 25.

He reportedly lodged at a hotel in Lagos that night and left the following morning for a business meeting at the Lafarge’s factory in Ewekoro, Ogun State.

According to the Lagos State Commissioner for Health, Prof Akin Abayomi, the patient started to develop symptoms of high fever and body pains on February 26 and was transferred to the Lagos State Biosecurity Facilities for isolation and testing.

The Italian was tested positive for COVID-19 at the Virology Laboratory of the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, part of the Laboratory Network of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control.

He has since been in quarantine at the Infectious Disease Centre at Yaba, Lagos, and health authorities said he was now clinically stable.

The commissioner later said the Lagos and Ogun state governments were tracing the patient’s 148 co-passengers, adding that another 39 persons the victim made contact with at the Lafarge’s Ewekoro plant were quarantined.

By Friday, the Ogun State Commissioner for Health, Dr Tomi Coker, said the 39 persons on quarantine had not developed any symptoms of COVID-19.

Coker said this while leading a team to the Redemption Camp of the Redeemed Christian Church of God along the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway.

Also, Abayomi, at a briefing on Thursday said the Italian was responding to treatment and would be released when he would no longer be a threat to other members of society.

However, the commissioner said the patient was suffering from depression as he was the only person in the ward and had few visitors because his family was not in Nigeria.

The commissioner added that 146 of the patient’s co-passengers had been identified except for two passengers onboard the Turkish Airlines who were still missing.

As of Friday, over 101,000 coronavirus cases have been recorded, with over 3,400 deaths. Around 56,000 patients have, however, recovered. China is the most hit country with more than 80,000 cases.

COVID-19 has now affected 95 countries and territories around the world and one international conveyance – the Diamond Princess cruise ship harboured in Yokohama, Japan.

Already, governments, pharmaceutical companies and scientists are racing to find a vaccine for the disease. Punch