By Mohamed Jaward Nyallay
The District Emergency Operations Center (DEOC) in the southern Bo District said a patient who tested positive for COVID-19 escaped from an isolation center and is on the run.
The patient who was identified as Michel Amara Kobba, 25, was in isolation in the Government Hospital in Bo City.
The DEOC Spokesperson, Francess Mummy Jabaty, told Politico that Kobba was waiting for his test result when he abandoned the center.
“He was at the isolation unit. So they had to take his swab and send it to Kenema. The test normally takes 72 hours before the result is completed. We went to a meeting yesterday and found out that the results were in, only for the nurses to tell us that they hadn’t seen the patient since Saturday,” Ms Jabaty explained.
She said rigorous search for the missing man had been on, noting that he hadn’t showed up anywhere in the city.
“We have gone to his family house with the Disease Surveillance team and they said he had left them some five years ago. The family said he was staying with a former lecturer, who also said the boy had left his home,” she said.
Jabaty said the escaped COVID-19 patient has a history of drug abuse, and so they were also looking at “ghettos” in the city for him.
The DEOC spokeswoman went on to say that the hospital had no Police stationed at the gate at the time Kobba escaped.
“The new LUC here withdrew the personnel and told us that we had to write another letter to formally request for security at the hospital,” she said.
Bo had recorded 24 cases as of Monday, May 18. This incident increases the chances of more cases cropping up in the district.
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