Fire burns down AIDS building at Lagos University Teaching Hospital

The AIDs Prevention Initiative Nigeria (APIN) building at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), Idi-Araba, Lagos went up in flames last night.

The building is near the children’s ward.

 The fire, which broke out a few minutes past 7pm, resulted from a spark from the Pharmacy room.

 “There was an outage, the entire building was in darkness and suddenly electricity was restored shortly after, then, a spark from the Pharmacy room that was all”, an official told newsmen.

 This occurred at the time workers in the section were rounding off a meeting. But nobody died or was injured.

 Efforts to extinguish the fire using the fire extinguishers proved abortive.

 The arrival of the officials of the Federal Fire Services could also not save the building from being totally burnt down.

 The men from the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) were also on ground.

 A female employee of the section was heard lamenting: “This is a big loss, Eight years of hard work is gone. All the files containing the data collected in the last eight years are no more,” she lamented.

 NEMA Southwest Information Officer Ibrahim Farinloye, said their officers where on ground to salvage any human disaster.

 Mr. Ganiyu Olayiwola, the operational commander of the Lagos Command, who led the Federal Fire Service, could not give details on the level of destruction.

Olayiwola said his men arrived at the scene of the inferno at 7:50pm.

 He said his men did not encounter any impediment in commencing work immediately.