The Lagos government has said that it was spending a huge amount of money to treat COVID-19 patients and maintain isolation facilities in the state.
The state Health Commissioner, Professor Akin Abayomi, who disclosed this at a press briefing on Thursday, hinted that it cost the government per day between N500,000 to N1 million to treat a single COVID-19 patient requiring intensive care.
On the average for patients with mild coronavirus cases, the government said it usually spends N100,000 per day to treat each patient.
“To treat mild to moderate case-patients in our isolation centre is somewhere in the region of N100,000 per day.
“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,” Abayomi said.
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Lagos State has remained the epicentre of the dreaded virus in Nigeria, recording almost half of the total number of cases in the entire country.
An update released by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) on Thursday night put the total number of cases for the virus in Nigeria at 38,948.
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