Depending on the case, we can spend up to N1m daily on a COVID-19 patient -Lagos commissioner for health

Akin Abayomi, commissioner for health in Lagos state, says the government spends between N500,000 and N1 million daily to treat a COVID-19 patient in critical condition.

Speaking at a press briefing on Thursday, Abayomi said the cost of managing a patient depends on factors such as being mild, moderate or severe.

The commissioner said up to N100,000 can be spent on a patient with mild symptoms  daily.

“To treat mild to moderate case patients in our isolation centre is somewhere in the region of N100,000 per day,” Abayomi said.

“That gives you an idea of the amount of money the government is spending on COVID-19 isolation facilities and COVID-19 care.

“If you require high care or intensive care, that amount can go up to anything from N500,000 to even a million naira per day, depending on the complications of the case.

“Do you need ventilation, dialysis, intravenous antibiotics; every case is different, so it is difficult to calculate exactly how much a patient in high care or intensive care would cost. We are working on the rate and we would make it available when it’s ready.”

Abayom said the state has set up an outpatient facility to monitor progress of discharged COVID-19 patients for six to 12 months.

He said the facility would manage post COVID-19 syndrome beginning to reflect in the reinfection of some discharged patients.

“We are beginning to discover from around the world that there is something called post COVID-19 syndrome. Post COVID-19 syndrome, is not well-defined. It is characterised by long term lethargy, weakness or what we have recognised as relapses,” he said.

“You would have cleared the virus, but few weeks later, you start secreting the virus, although not in large quantity but low quantity because the immune system is still trying to eradicate the virus from your system.

“In the process of doing that, people complain of headache, weakness, fatigue and other problems.”

He added that seven accredited private medical laboratories in the state conducted 912 COVID-19 tests in their first week of activation.

According to him, the tests increased to 1,538 tests in the second week of activation of the laboratories, saying the numbers would rise in coming weeks.

According to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Lagos, which is the epicentre of the disease in Nigeria, has a total of 13,806 COVID-19 cases out of which 1,993 patients have been discharged.