Gombe shuts Govt House Clinic, SSG’s office over death of senior official

A staff of Gombe Government House has died of Covid-19 prompting orders to shut down the office of the secretary to the state government (SSG) and the Government House Clinic for disinfection.

Shuaibu Danlami, a director for special services and politics at the office of the SSG and a member of the state taskforce on Covid-19, died on Sunday in Gombe after a brief illness, the taskforce on Covid-19 said.

Samples taken from him for testing returned positive for coronavirus from the NCDC lab in Abuja late Tuesday, said the taskforce chairman Idris Mohammed on Wednesday.

He said both the SSG’s office complex and the Government House Clinic will be closed for fumigation, and samples will be taken from staff who worked in both locations for testing.

Danlami was also a member and assistant secretary of the taskforce and samples of other members of the taskforce have also been taken for testing.

Officials are tracing other contacts of the deceased. They also plan to trace, test and isolate all who took part in Danlami’s burial until results of their tests are out.

Danlami is the seventh Covid-19 death on record in Gombe. Some 125 people have been discharged from treatment centres and 23 still in hopsitalisation are considered active cases.

He stated that since the deceased was also a member of the state’s Taskforce on COVID-19, all members of the taskforce would be screened for COVID-19 and anyone found positive would be isolated.