Treating Coronavirus Cases Early Is Why Anambra Has Low Death Rate – Okpala

The Anambra State Commissioner for Health, Dr. Vincent Okpala has come out to share why the state has a low coronavirus death rate.

He simply revealed that this is the case because of the early treatment of suspected cases in Anambra.

According to him, treating the virus early disrupts its progress to the severe stage and this has decreased casualties in the state thus far.

He added that the current 9 deaths that have been recorded in Anambra are down to late presentation.

His words, “This will make the disease not to progress to the severe stage and casualties reduced.

“This is a new disease, we are still trying to understand why someone will be positive for COVID-19 with one or two symptoms and survives, another will have many symptoms and within a few days, he dies while another will not even have any symptom at all.

“In future, we will know why but before then, let us not lose more people. This is why whether asymptomatic, fully symptomatic or very severe, we treat them all and let time sort them all.

“The nine deaths we recorded was due to late presentation.

“People and even some doctors will be treating malaria and refuse to call for COVID-19 test until the patient starts experiencing shortness of breath or hypoxia, at that point, it might be difficult to handle such case.”

“These people are helping to spread the disease and some people they might infect might not have strong immunity to survive the disease

“You call them on phone, they begin to rain curses on you and cut the call. When we tried to go hard on them, they bring in human right issues when this is supposed to be an overriding public interest.

“This is a disease many do not even know how they got it, so it’s good to defy stigma and present for treatment so that more lives will be saved.”