Delta State Government has debunked the rumours making the rounds that a serving member of the National Youth Service Corps, NYSC, was diagnosed with lassa fever, thereby recording an isolated case of the dreaded disease outbreak in Asaba, Delta State.
The commissioner for information, Charles Aniagwu, made the government position know during a press briefing in Asaba, the state capital.
Aniagwu, while briefing the media at the end of the first Exco meeting of the state government, said, information from Irrua Specialist Hospital in Edo State, where the patient was erroneously rushed has proven otherwise.
“I want to seize this opportunity to debunk the story making the rounds that a case of lassa [fever] has been recorded in Delta State. As a government, we have followed the development and can authoritatively say that it is not true,”Aniagwu said.
“Because the patient who was erroneously rushed to the hospital at Irrua on the recommendation of Federal Medical Center, Asaba, is responding to treatment,” he added.
It would be recalled that the corps member, names withheld, who was later transferred to Irrua after the virus was reportedly confirmed at the FMC, Asaba, where he was earlier rushed to.
Efforts then to get the state Commissioner for Health, Dr. Mordi Ononye, speak on the issue proved abortive.
As neither he could not be reached on the development as several calls to his cell phone rang out unanswered, just as message sent to him was not responded to.
Neither was co-ordinator of NYSC in the state, Olatoye Samuel could be reached on her cell phone, although multiple sources quoted her as saying that the victim had been stabilised and transferred to Irrua.
On his part, the spokesperson of NYSC, Chidi Nnochiri, also declined comments on the issue, saying that he is not a medical expert to know if there was lassa fever outbreak, while an informed source, who pleaded anonymity, also explained that the young man took ill on Wednesday last week at the corpers’ lodge, and was rushed to FMC on Friday when case became critical.
“He fell sick since Wednesday last week, but we were buying drugs thinking it was just malaria and will be okay, but he was not getting better and his eyes were changing.
His body also started changing to white as if it is harmattan but it was not, even his urine was dark in colour. So, on Friday we decided to take him to FMC, Asaba. After series tests, it was confirmed lassa fever and was taken to Edo state same day,” the source volunteered.
The governor of Kano State, Monday, confirmed the death of three people due to lassa fever in what appears to be a spreading outbreak.
