Monrovia – A woman, presenting signs and symptoms of the novel Coronavirus, has been taken into isolation in Grand Gedeh County with her specimen flown to Monrovia for testing, FrontPageAfrica has gathered.
The lady, 22, and her four year old child, reportedly traveled from Ivory Coast, crossing through an illegal border point to Gbloleken, a town in Grand Gedeh County – southeastern Liberia.
She was reported to the Gbloleken Clinic on Thursday, 26 March while presenting signs and symptoms of COVID-19 after she had initially refused to be taken to Zwedru, the county’s capital.
She was, however, persuaded by health workers.
The County Health Officer confirmed that the patient is currently being isolated at the Martha Tubman Hospital where a medical team from Monrovia is collecting specimen to be taken to Monrovia for testing, FPA has also been informed.
A special flight with a medical team is on ground waiting for the specimen to be taken, a source said.
Meanwhile, 11 staffs of the Gbloleken Clinic, where the suspected patient was first taken, are currently being quarantined and the clinic has been ordered temporarily closed.
Contact tracing is ongoing to know the motorbike rider, who commuted the lady, and other contacts, a source within the National Public Health Institute of Liberia said.
The source added that NPHIL cannot uprightly confirmed that the case is positive until the result is in, adding that as a precautionary measure in keeping with the health protocols of the country, all contacts already traced have been quarantined.
Dr. Mosoka Fallah, Director of NPHIL, could not confirm nor deny the information when he was contacted by FPA, but he promised to give details “shortly”.
However, according to update on NPHIL website published Saturday, there’s “one new suspected case reported from Grand Gedeh County, a 22 year old female, with travel history from Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire”.
Already, Liberia has three confirmed cases and three suspected cases, while 390 contacts are being traced with 45 of them considered “high risk” cases.