The Federal Inland Revenue Service, FIRS, on Tuesday confirmed that its staff, FIRS, has tested positive to coronavirus.
Recall that Salihu Umar, a staff of the Federal Inland Revenue Service, FIRS, had disclosed that he tested positive for the novel COVID-19.
In a series of tweets on Monday, Umar said he is still under self-isolation and that health personnel are making their way to his house for evacuation to Gwagwalada Isolation Centre.
FIRS in a statement realeased by its Director, Communications and Liaison Department,
Abdullahi Ismaila Ahmad said the staff had isolated himself after suspecting to have picked corona virus while sharing flight with some prominent Nigerians.
The statement said the staff suspected that he may have picked up Covid-19 while sharing a flight with the child of a prominent, politically-exposed person whose Covid-19 status has also been widely reported by the media.
“We can confirm that a Member of Staff of the Service – in a voluntary waive of patient confidentiality accorded all patients by care-givers globally – on Monday, March 23, 2020 at about noon took to the micro-blogging platform, Twitter, to announce his COVID-19 status.
“Management hereby wishes to inform the public that the Member of Staff was in voluntary self-isolation after alighting from the aforesaid flight and did not, therefore, visit any FIRS facilities or have further contact with any of his colleagues.
“He developed symptoms of COVID-19 at home and in self-isolation from where he was evacuated promptly by the NCDC. The NCDC had closely monitored his situation in self-isolation as he had voluntarily contacted the NCDC since that federal agency has been urging patriotic Nigerians to do so under the current circumstance.
“The FIRS Management is in constant touch with the Member of Staff in question at the Gwagwalada facility where the hard-working health care givers are attending to all confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the Federal Capital Territory,” it said.
FIRS added that before this development, it had put up precautionary measures to protect members of staff, taxpayers and other visitors to all FIRS facilities nationwide from COVID-19 in line with federal advisory as put out by the NCDC and the Federal Ministry of Health.
There are presently 44 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the country.
