Monrovia – Liberia’s health authorities have announced that they will within the next 24 hours “hopefully” disclose the current statuses of the first three COVID-19 patients in the country.
They made the disclosure Thursday, 2 April at the Government-organized press conference to provide updates on the Coronavirus pandemic.
According to the Chief Medical Officer of Liberia Dr. Francis Kateh, based upon the second tests results carried out on the first three confirmed cases, health authorities will decide whether or not to inform the public.
“The first test results came out negative, so in other words, their bodies now were able to fight the disease out but we had to repeat that for the second time and having two consistent negatives will give us the ability to discharge them. So that result will come in later this evening or early tomorrow morning,” said Dr. Kateh.
He, however, disclosed that if all the test results come out negative, the patients will be discharged from the 14 Military Hospital and be placed in a Precautionary Observation Center (POC) for a period of 14 days before going back in the communities, where they will again be observed for additional seven days.
“During their time at the POC, we are going to monitor and follow them up; after that we will do our community engagement and so forth before sending them into the community. So we are taking time to learn this disease, we will also communicate with them frequently so that we do not make any mistakes,” disclosed Dr. Kateh.
Meanwhile, Liberia’s Chief Medical Officer has also disclosed that they [health authorities] have begun testing all of those under quarantine at the various POCs.
“We want to know their status before they go back in the community, so that if anything were to happen we already know what their status was and also, if something were to happen, we will realize that COVID-19 is taking a different trend and that will warrant our investigation,” he explained.
Liberia announced its 1st COVID-19 case on March 16 and through contact tracing, the second case was announced but the origin of the third case is yet to be known.
Once the first three cases are confirmed negative, the country will be left with three confirmed cases. On Wednesday, April 1 the government confirmed three new cases of COVID-19.
The National Public Health Institute of Liberia has also reported that there are 496 contacts including 78 health workers who have been documented. This means they are under quarantine. A total of 308 contacts have completed 14 days.