Fear gripped residents of Makurdi, the Benue State capital, on Saturday, March 21st, 2020, when a 17-year-old boy suspected to have contracted the coronavirus disease was admitted to the University Teaching Hospital, Makurdi.

However, the Chief Medical Director of the teaching hospital, Prof. Telumun Swende, made a statement that calmed the people down, noting that the boy was only suffering from common cold.

Swende said,

Earlier today (Saturday), a young man of about 17 years, who had cold and cough presented himself at our facility and informed the medical personnel on duty that he suspected that he had COVID-19.

However, upon examination, our team of doctors discovered that he had no symptoms of COVID-19.

Interaction with the patient revealed that he had not travelled out of Benue State for several years and has almost zero per cent chances of contracting the virus.

It was discovered that he became unnecessarily agitated due to wrong interpretation of COVID-19 symptoms he had read and heard from the social media.

He was promptly treated and allowed to go home. We wish to use this medium to appeal to social media bloggers and other users to be cautious of what they post on COVID-19, to avoid creating unnecessary panic.

We wish to assure all and sundry that there’s no suspected case of COVID-19 at BSUTH, Makurdi at the moment.

This is a typical example of coronavirus fears that has gripped the world.

Justin Nwosu

Justin Nwosu is the founder and publisher of Flavision. His core interest is in writing unbiased news about Nigeria in particular and Africa in general. He’s a strong adherent of investigative journalism, with a bent on exposing corruption, abuse of power and societal ills.