Nigeria’s health ministry said on Friday it has confirmed a coronavirus case in Lagos state. The case which was confirmed yesterday is the first case to be reported in Nigeria since the beginning of the outbreak in China in January. The health minister Osagie Ehanire, in a statement, said the victim is an Italian citizen who works in Nigeria and returned from Milan, Italy to Lagos Feb. 25.
His infection was confirmed by the Virology Laboratory of the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, part of the Laboratory Network of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control. “The patient is clinically stable, with no serious symptoms,” said the minister, adding that he was being treated at a hospital in the Lagos district of Yaba. “We have already started working to identify all the contacts of the patient, since he entered Nigeria,” said Ehanire. Prior to the case in Nigeria, just two cases had surfaced across all of Africa -- in Egypt and in Algeria -- a tally that had puzzled health specialists, given the continent's close economic ties with China.