Kogi State Government has debunked the reported outbreak of Lassa fever in the State.
The Commissioner For Health in the State, Dr Saka Haruna spoke to newsmen over reported outbreak of a strange disease was spotted in Okunran, Okoloke and Isanlu-Esa all in Yagba West, Local Government Area of the state
Dr Haruna while noting that the state government was in the village to get first hand information about the deadly disease, added that the government will take the responsibility of those who were currently suffering from any strange sickness.
“For now, it is clear and has been confirmed that it is not Lassa fever, but whatever it is, we will carry out further investigation with information we have with us now and come up with definitive diagnosis,” Audu said.
He noted that the information about the outbreak of the strange disease was received last week and they immediately sent technical team to take the samples, which was sent to General Hospital Irua, Edo State, for definitive investigation.
According to the commissioner, “from the results we got, we are sure it is not Lassa fever and that is what is cleared at this stage.”
He added “we are going further to find out what the real cause may be, we don’t know what it is currently, but all hands are on deck to make sure that we find out the definitive cause of the mysterious deaths among the kids”.
Dr Jannette Hathorn, a Consultant at Evangelical Church of West Africa (ECWA) Hospital Egbe, said a child of two and half years was brought to the hospital who later died after 12 hours.
“We had definitely had a misleading news about patients bleeding around, so we tried to make diagnosis for viral hemorrhagic fever (Lassa fever), but the lab results came out negative.
“We are sure it is not Lassa fever but on the other hand, our concerns is that we do not know exactly the cause of what was happening. We had a differential but we never came to a definitive diagnosis.
“Two other adult patients were also brought, one presented with ulcer-viral illness but there was no bleeding component of any hemorrhagic symptom.
“We isolated them and both of them were treated for malaria. So, when they started improving, we let them go.
“But our concern was another parent who brought their child to the hospital and pleaded with us for help that about 40 to 50 people had died in their villages with a similar symptoms as their child in the last three weeks.”
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