The Kwara state government on Thursday said a suspected case of Ebola virus disease has been reported in the state.
The
Chairman of the state committee on Ebola virus, Prof Sunday Opabola
told reporters in Ilorin, the state capital allaying fear of outbreak of
the disease in the state.
He said the suspected case was on Wednesday discovered on a 7-month old baby newly brought in to the state from Ibadan, the Oyo state capital
The professor of medicine, who doubles as a Special Assistant to
Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed on public health emphasised that there is no
confirmed case of the disease in the state as being speculated around.
He added that the baby with the suspected case was found with some
symptoms which are not exclusive to ebola disease but also have to do
with those of lassa fever, cholera, malaria and some other diseases.
Said he: “We need to do this because of all the rumours and talks going on in town and also on the social media.
Kwara state has always had a very strong surveillance system for
infectious diseases but when that thing came up, the ministry of health
set up a committee to put in place a standard procedure for outbreak
control and prevention in the state.
“But due to the seriousness of the situation, the governor of the state
set up a committee for the control of the disease which was inaugurated
yesterday. In fact we have not had an inaugural meeting which is
supposed to be 10 this morning but this is more important.
“The committee was given specific terms of reference.
But by 9 am yesterday, I was called to the ministry of health that a proprietor of a private hospital who is a pediatrician reported a suspected case on admission in his hospital.
But by 9 am yesterday, I was called to the ministry of health that a proprietor of a private hospital who is a pediatrician reported a suspected case on admission in his hospital.
The
suspected patient is a seven-month old child that came to Ilorin with
the mother and she came out with suspicion of malaria and was admitted
at Surulere clinic and they started treating him for malaria, that is on
the 10th of this month, four days ago. After managing him for two days,
there was no improvement, he was referred to a pediatrician.
“After clinical assessment, he apparently saw some symptoms that look
like Ebola. These symptoms basically fever, diarrhea, vomiting that were
being taken care of before in other hospitals but he now saw that this
vomiting consists of blood and that was where he made a report.
“Now if it were not in this situation we are, I am sure he couldn’t have
made any report because some other diseases could have presented these
same symptoms, even malaria in children would present something like.
Other viral infections, viral hemorrhagic diseases would present like
this, Lassa fever and so on, even cholera can present like this but
because in this situation we have been at alert and we don’t want to
take chances.
So he made a report and we went into action and the standard procedure
were one, we removed the patients from the hospital to our already
prepared isolation centre at Sobi Specialist Hospital, then we continued
managing the patient there, we took blood sample of the patients and
the mother for diagnosis of the virus. Currently the samples are on
their way to Lagos.
“One of the samples would be given to Professor Tomori who is the major
viral person in Nigeria at Redeemers University and we are testing the
second sample at LUTH today.
“As we await the test result, other measures are being put in place such
as one; the governor has approved the purchase of the test machine
which has been ordered from Abuja and we expect it to arrive Ilorin
today and this machine would be stationed at the Kwara Diagnostic Centre
and we post staff there who are experienced at operating this machine
would help us in doing that.
“We have done this to allow easy and quick accessibility to testing and
screening of suspected cases. Two, continuous surveillance is going on
and we are doing contact tracing for each particular patient. We will
continue the contact tracing as we await the test result.
” We will continue the contact tracing as we await the test result.”
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