Bauchi State Governor, Sen Bala Mohammed Abdulkadir, who has been in quarantine for testing positive to COVID-19 infection has now fully recovered as his last sample has tested negative.
Bala Mohammed is expected to be discharged from isolation and resume his official duties as the Governor of Bauchi.
A statement from the Government House signed by the Special Assistant, New Media to the Governor, Lawal Muazu Bauchi contained that, “His Excellency, the Governor of Bauchi State, Sen. Bala A. Mohammed has fully recovered from the #COVID-19 virus.”
The statement further contained that, “The Governor, while receiving the result of his second test which turned out negative, thanked the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), the local Bauchi COVID-19 Rapid Response TaskForce, the Imams, Ulamas, Pastors and all religious leaders within and outside the state for their selfless devotion all through his time in isolation.”
It added that “The governor also thanked his Cabinet members as well as residents and indigenes of the state for remaining steadfast and relentless all through the period of his ailment and subsequent treatment which lasted for about three weeks.
“The governor while speaking used the opportunity of his return to full and active service to urge residents and visitors to the state to maintain strict adherence to all protocols laid down by the government towards tackling the COVID19 menace within the state and in Nigeria as a whole,” the statement concluded.
Meanwhile, Bauchi State Government has disputed the number of COVID-19 positive cases of 8 as released by the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) declaring that as far as it is concerned, it has only 4 positive cases.
Chairman of the State Rapid Response Taskforce, Sen Baba Tela while briefing Journalists at the Government House on Thursday, declared that there was a mixup in the results of the sample tests returned to the state by the NCDC thereby increasing the number cases in the state.
Baba Tela who is the Deputy Governor of the state explained that “from the results sent to us by NCDC, we found out that there are incorrect addresses of the samples sent to them, we also discovered that even the genders of the cases were incorrect to what we sent to them.”
He added: “We know that they (NCDC) are presently overwhelmed because they receive samples from all the 19 Northern states. In as much as we commend them for doing excellent jobs, we demand that in issues like this, more caution should be taken”.
The Taskforce Chairman, however, admitted that the fault is from the two sides explaining that, “we just discovered that the proper labelling including hospital number of the victim needs to be done when sending samples particularly for reevaluation, reconfirmation and retesting.”
While insisting that the state so far has four positive cases, Baba Tela explained that “we sent samples of two of the first index cases for reevaluation which came out to be positive. We also sent another three new samples out of which one was positive making the number to be four. The mistake is that the NCDC added the two who had earlier tested positive to become new cases.”
He also said that the state has received more donation of preventive materials including masks, solar-powered refrigerators and other medical consumables from International Relief Agency, Bauchi Chambers of Commerce and Industries as well as other donor agencies.