Olabode Ladipo, the Oyo State Incident Manager and Coordinator of the Emergency Operations Centre, says it is misleading to say COVID-19 Delta variant has killed two persons in the state.
Ladipo made the clarification while speaking with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Monday in Ibadan, following reports that two residents of the state were killed by the deadly virus.
“That the Delta variant killed two people in the state was not what I said.
“As part of our surveillance strategy for COVID-19, we took samples from quite a number of people, including some dead persons.
“We sent the samples to The African Centre of Excellence for the Genomics of Infectious Disease (ACEGID), Redeemer’s University, Ede, Osun State.
“We then discovered that some of the cases had the Delta variant of the Coronavirus.
“I didn’t say that those dead persons were killed by the Delta variant; let us not create unnecessary public panic,” he said.
According to him, I made it clear that the sample was taken after death, and so it would be unfair to say they died from complications of the Delta strain.
“We didn’t have much opportunity to assess the client for a long period before death.
“It could have arisen from a coexisting morbidity which complicated the infection
“As such, the point is that the variant was isolated from samples taken from the deceased,” Oladipo explained.
He, therefore, appealed to the state residents to consistently apply all guidelines earlier stipulated by the task force.
“I will be more comfortable, if I see people wearing their masks again; lots of people have abandoned some of these crucial preventive measures.
“The Delta variant has virtually the same symptoms as the earlier ones: coughs, breathlessness, but with this variant, which is more transmissible, significantly, there is muscular pain and more diarrhoea.
“Also, yesterday, we admitted two people based on breathlessness.
“It is not true that the Delta variant doesn’t have symptoms, it does have symptoms,” he said.