Coronavirus: Infected Italian slips into depression as Lagos hints on discharge date

The Lagos State Commissioner for Health, Prof. Akin Abayomi, has revealed that the Italian being treated for coronavirus at the Infectious Disease Centre, Yaba, is depressed but getting better.

Abayomi, who made the statement at a briefing on Thursday, said the Italian, was responding to treatment, but would only be released when he would no longer be a threat to the other members of society.

Abayomi said: “The Italian has been with us for one week now; his clinical situation is quite stable, the symptoms are dramatically resolving; so, we are expectant that we will continue to make this kind of progress.

“Sometime over the weekend, he developed a respiratory symptom, and we initiated some therapy in the form of ant-viral, which are not curative, but just to make it easier for his immune system to fight the infection. He seems to have responded to that; so we are keeping him on that and there are no side effects.

“As of today (Wednesday), he is in a better spirit; he requested psychosocial support as he was getting a bit depressed because he is in isolation. He is the only person in the ward, and of course, very few visitors, because his family is not in Nigeria.

“His last viral load, which is the measure of the virus in his body, shows that the level is going down. If that trend continues he will be better. I can’t give the precise estimate in terms of the date that he will be released, it may not be long, perhaps another week. As soon as he is not secreting the viruses, that means he is no longer contagious. However, to be safe, after we get the first negative, we wait a few days and repeat it and if the second test is negative then we are confident that he can return to the community without posing a danger to other people.”