Parents should pressure Private Varsities to report Covid-19 cases – Coker

The Ogun State Commissioner for Health, Dr Tomi Coker, has advised the parents of students in a private university in the state to force the management to report alleged cases of COVID-19 on its campus to the government.

Coker said this on Sunday while speaking with one of our correspondents on the COVID-19 cases said to have been recorded in the private university.

The commissioner said the university had not officially notified the state government of the COVID-19 cases on its campus.

Coker said, “The school needs to bring it (COVID-19 case) to the attention of the state government .

“It is a private school, it is not a government-owned institution. Until it informs us, we can’t intervene.

“The parents whose children are affected need to go to the school and make the demand on the school to explain to the government. They need to make that official.

“Similar thing happened at UNILAG. I was there when the management called the Commissioner for Health of Lagos – that has to happen.”

Earlier, some parents had alleged that the university called them to pick their children who tested positive for coronavirus.

A parent, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said she was called early on Sunday to pick her son as there was no space to isolate all the students who had tested positive in the school’s clinic.

She said, “I received a call on Sunday morning that my son tested positive for COVID-19. If we bring him home, there are other children in the house; so I have to think of them. They told me they don’t have space to isolate the children because the clinic is filled up.”

The Registrar of the school, in a telephone interview with The Punch said, “Today is Sunday, I have not been to office to be able to know. I will find out and get back to you.”

He, however, did not get back to our correspondent as of press time on Sunday.

Source: PUNCH