The Bauchi state government has said that it is tracing over 305 contacts that have had direct contact with the positive coronavirus cases in the state.

The contacts are in addition to the 96 direct contacts of the first, second and third cases, whose blood samples were taken for testing and their results came out negative.

According to the National Center for Disease Control, Abuja, Bauchi state has six confirmed positive cases with the state Governor, Senator Bala Mohammed, being the index case.

The Deputy Governor, Bauchi state, Senator Baba Tela, disclosed this while speaking at a press conference on the daily coronavirus situation in the state at the Government House on Monday.

He said that the result of these contacts are being awaited from the NCDC.

Tela who is also the Chairman of the Bauchi State Task Force on COVID-19 and Lassa Fever said that the state government would soon establish a test centre for coronavirus in the state to so as to spare the state of the stress of going to Abuja for testing.

He said:

“We have been tracing all the contacts from our first index person to the last ones printed by the NCDC. We have listed 305 contacts in all, we have listed all these contacts and we have contacted them and we have taken their samples.

“In fact, the government, not being satisfied with the time it takes to get a test done, because you have to take it to Abuja from here, and all the other tests are done in Abuja. Then, you have to sit down and wait for the queue may be, three to five days before the result comes back.

“We are preparing and we are planning to have a test centre here in Bauchi whereby we don’t need to go take our samples to Abuja, we can do all our testing here. We are not leaving any stone unturned, we are trying to ensure that we have that test centre here in Bauchi.”

Speaking on the state of health of the Governor who has been in self-isolation since March 23rd and whose sample had been taken for a second test, he said that he (the governor) was doing fine.

Reacting to an online medium which reported that the second result of the governor had turned out to be negative, he did not either deny or accept the said report.

“His Excellency, the Governor is doing well, am sure most of you saw him on Skype the other day. Yesterday (Sunday), he had a teleconference at the Nigerian Governors’ Forum and he is doing fantastic.

“You know, it’s exactly two weeks today since he went into self-isolation and the protocol is when a sample is taken, we don’t rely on what we hear or what we see on social media or any report, but we rely on what the NCDC tells us. We have taken the (second) sample and we are waiting for the result from the NCDC.

“Like you know, unless the result comes in from the NCDC, as government we will not make a comment on it even if the comment is there in the social media, as soon as the result comes in from the NCDC, we’ll make a comment on it but I assure you that, we are still waiting for that result from them,” he said.

Asked if the NCDC did not send the result directly to the state government before posting on its website, the Deputy Governor said:

“The NCDC had posted on its website that we (Bauchi) has six index cases, of course, these consists of the earlier three that we had and are undergoing medication and the three others that the NCDC suspected of having the virus after testing. They are all under management and we are doing all we can as government to ensure that they come out well.

“Whatever NCDC tells us, they are the ones that have the capacity at this time to test for us in Bauchi state and when they tell us that we have an index case, we do whatever the protocol requires of us to handle that index case. And for the three index cases that they have told us, we are doing everything we can to abide by their protocol in relation to those index cases.”