The Oyo state government has discharged 11 persons from its Olodo Infectious Disease Centre in Ibadan after they tested negative to the coronavirus twice.
Those discharged comprised eight males and 3 females.
The Coordinator of COVID-19 Isolation Centres in Oyo state, Prof. Temitope Alonge, who disclosed this while speaking to newsmen shortly after releasing the persons on Thursday, said that the novel virus is not similar to HIV virus noting that it does not reside in its host forever.
He added that the virus has a span of time during which the body’s immune system is built enough to knock it off from the body and an infected person returns to normal health.
“The novel virus even though it belongs to a particular family is not in any way similar to the HIV virus meaning it does not reside in its host forever.
“It has a span of time and then your body immune system is built enough to knock it off and then you come back to normal.
“But of course if at all the time you have the high load of the virus, you happen to have some other co-morbidity or you are under some treatments that reduce your immunity then you can have a full flare.
“So, it’s not like the HIV virus that you have to take medication to suppress to reduce its effects.
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“But when a patient come down and is tested as positive it means the load of the virus is enough to make them sick and when they are in isolation, what we actually do is to build their immunity.
“There are so many regimens in the world that are being tried and used but here, our patients are stuck up to a simple regimen.
“They had zinc on a daily basis, vitamin C 2g (1g each for morning and night), and they also had Chloroquine 500m, and 50m daily for another three days,” he explained.
Prof Alonge, stated further that some of the patients who had cough in the course of their stay were placed on cough syrup and antibiotics.
“In between this, some of them had cough and of course those ones we put them on cough syrup and antibiotic cover, reason being that with the viral infection they are prone to develop other infection,” he said.
He also stated that the medical team were not only looking at patients symptoms adding that they also check the viral load as well as what he called CT.
“We are not only looking at their symptoms, there is something that we also check which is the viral load, we also check what we call CT but the value of the CT has a correlation with the value of the viral load, the higher the viral load the lower the CT value.
Prof Alonge however disclosed that the period of stay at the isolation centre under treatment ranges between five days and two weeks adding that this is the largest number of discharged COVID-19 cases in Oyo state.
