Luth management reveals that 40 members of its staff have been infected with the coronavirus

LAGOS University Teaching Hospital (Luth) officials have revealed that about 40 members of staff have been infected with the Covid-19 virus over the last three months contracting the virus bit from their local communities and in the discharging their duties.

So far, Nigeria has had 20,244 cases of coronavirus, with 518 casualties, of which 8,576 and 126 fatalities have been in Lagos State. Being the epicentre of the pandemic in Nigeria. Lagos State's health services have borne the brunt of the virus but its hospitals and isolation centres have coped with the crisis remarkably well.

Professor Wasiu Adeyemo, the chairman of Luth's medical advisory committee, said that contrary to reports that only nine doctors were affected, the infection rate was much higher. he also denied reports that Luth receives 500 patients daily.

“More than 90% of them are community-acquired infections because the healthcare workers also live in the community. When they close from work, they go home and I can assure you that more than 90% of those infected have nothing to do with patient care.

“Many of them live in the communities but we don’t want any of our staff to be treated elsewhere. We give them the preference that once they are infected, we bring them to the hospital and treat them.

 “About 100 of our staff are directly taking care of Covid-19 patients from our Accident and Emergency Ward, where you have the triage to the holding area and to the Block B, where you have the isolation centre. None have been infected because they have enough training and knowledge to protect themselves,” Professor Adeyemo added.

Denying reports that Luth receives 500 patients daily, he added that total number of patients treated by the hospital each day is not up to that.  According to Professor Adeyemo, fortunately, Luth has not lost any member of staff to Covid-19.

He added: "We have not lost any of our staff to Covid-19, many of them have recovered. Also, we do not reject Covid-19 patients and if by the time the patient arrives we don’t have the capacity, we will refer to the Infectious Disease Hospital, at Yaba or other isolation centres.

"We have only one response team in Lagos and if you don’t have space, you refer. The admission rate is lowest in two weeks now as before it used to be 90 and 95 but now we have about 56 and we have space."

Professor Adeyemo added that Luth is now seeing more severe cases because many people are not coming to hospital for treatment. He pointed out that they only wait until they see all the symptoms as there is still denial about the virus.

"Staying at home is more dangerous. We have seen one individual infecting about 12 members of his family," Professor Adeyemo added.