According to the government, the case of the Dubai returnees has shown that pre-evacuation tests were “no guarantee”.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, stated this on Monday in Abuja during the daily press briefing by the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19.
While responding to a question on the development, Onyeama said the evacuees were tested before they were airlifted from the United Arab Emirates but added that the incident has shown the need for a 14-day mandatory quarantine for all evacuees.
He said: “The Emirates has a mandatory testing system before they board the flight. They were tested.
“Our medical experts had told us it was not necessary that they test beforehand and I think that this proves it because the period of gestation is not one that can be necessarily seen immediately.
“So, even if you test, you could actually start seeing (symptoms) some days after the flight. It is not a full-proof way. What we have maintained is the temperature test, close observation, and so on and so forth.
“The positive cases in Lagos go to show that testing beforehand is no guarantee whatsoever.”
It would be recalled that the Lagos State Commissioner for Health, Professor Akin Abayomi, had announced on Sunday that three of the 256 Nigerians evacuated from Dubai on May 6 and under supervised quarantine in the state, tested positive for the virus.
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