COVID-19: Fear Grips Port Users As Suspected Vessel Berths At Tin Can Port
The National Centre for Desease Control (NCDC) had on Thursday night confirmed 14 new cases of cornavirus in the country.
According to the NCDC, out of the 14 new cases, 6 were detected on a vessel, 3 are returning travellers into Nigeria and 1 is close contact of a confirmed case.
“The vessel would come in today to drop the containers, but we were told that it would not return back with empty containers, and this is another port congestion” he said
However, the spokesman for SIFAX Group, operators of Ports and Cargo terminal, Mr Olumuyiwa Akande debunked the reports in a chat with DAILY TREND NEWS.
He said that some concerned stakeholders have equally called to make enquiries on the suspected case, but he assured that there is no case of suspected rew with Coronavirus at the terminal.
Muyiwa allayed the fear of port users, saying that “The only agency that can declare anybody infected is the NCDC, and there is a process, there would be symptoms, samples would be taken, tested, and upon that, the NCDC can now confirm if anyone is positive or negative”
“We cannot come to a conclusion everytime somebody sneezes that he is infected. The Port Health are at the port to check every crew coming into the port”
“As of now, there is no report of any suspected crew at our terminal, all vessels that supposed to berth at our terminal are berthing, if there are issues, the NPA would have been the first to know”
“We are aware of the implications, if such happens, our staff would be at risk, now we have even scaled down our operations to ensure that everyone is safe. Only the people in key operations are going to work right now” he said