Date: 2014-08-19

Since the Patrick Sawyer incident which was an index case of Ebola Virus Disease outbreak in Nigeria, the fear of the disease has heightened among Nigerians. This fear manifested recently when many people fell for the water/salt therapy which eventually killed some people after consuming excessive salt in an attempt to “prevent” the Ebola infection.

Following the outbreak of the disease, all states in the federation made frantic efforts to prevent it in the wake of the Lagos incident when the Liberian man who died at First Consultant Hospital Obalende imported the virus to Nigeria.

Amid the nationwide fear came the rumor of a suspected Ebola case in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital on Wednesday when a seven-month old baby was reportedly suspected of the symptoms of the disease when the rumour had gone viral on the internet that the deadly Ebola disease had entered the state. More frightening was that it was “discovered” on a seven-month old baby boy. 

Later that day however the development led to panic in the state as residents started cautioning their family, friends and loved ones and restricting their movement especially Olorunsogo area which is the hospital’s location.

Daily Trust gathered that those outside the state were also panicky over the report as several phone calls and other means communication were exchanged among friends and family members to confirm the authenticity of the report.

The rumour coming at a time Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed had just inaugurated a committee on Prevention and Control of Ebola Disease, however, propelled the government to address a news conference to clear the air on the rumoured Ebola disease outbreak in the state capital.

While addressing newsmen at the Government House, the Committee Chairman who is also the governor’s Senior Special Assistant on Primary Health Care, Professor Sunday Opabola explained that the committee had planned to hold its inaugural meeting when the news filtered in that an Ebola patient had been discovered in the state. 

The seriousness of the news, he added, forced the committee to put off its inaugural meeting to address the matter at hand.

On how the rumour emanated and the veracity of the report, Opabola, a Professor of Public Health explained that it was not a case of Ebola per se but that a pediatrician found symptoms of Ebola on the child and referred the child to a private children’s specialist hospital from another hospital in Surulere Ilorin where he was treated for malaria for three days without the child’s condition improving.

The child reportedly showed symptoms of Ebola like fever, diarrhea, vomiting, among others. Worse still, the seven-month old baby whose identity and his mother’s was not disclosed, has blood in his vomit according to the report made to the Ministry of Health. 

As a result, the child and his mother were quarantined at an isolation centre in Sobi Specialist Hospital while their blood samples were taken to the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) for the Ebola test.

Opabola noted that if not for the Ebola virus outbreak in Nigeria, the paediatrician who made the report wouldn’t have done so because other viral diseases could show similar symptoms, saying the child might be suffering from severe malaria.   

“Other viral infections, viral haemorrhagic 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”, he said.

However, on Thursday, the baby died at the isolation centre but the mother remained in the centre until Saturday when the test result was confirmed to be negative. The result reportedly arrived on Friday with the two samples tested negative.

This apparently relieved many Kwarans who were hitherto frightened by the news of the Ebola outbreak. 

Speaking with our correspondent, the state Commissioner for Information and Communications, Prince Tunji Moronfoye, expressed delight with the outcome of the test which he noted confirmed the state as free of Ebola. Nonetheless, he added, the state is prepared for “onslaught” against Ebola.

On the outcome of the test, the Committee Chairman noted that the child’s condition was a case of mismanaged malaria. Sources told our correspondent that the child’s handlers in the first hospital he was taken to gave him intubation when he was supposed to be dehydrated. 

Confirming this, Professor Opabola said, “The history we later got was that when they could not rehydrate him intravenously in the first hospital, they gave him an intubation (putting a tube through the nose into the stomach) to feed him. When he was not responding they removed the tube and transferred him to the paediatrician’s hospital in town and the first vomiting the boy had contained blood. Intubation can cause bleeding from the stomach and that is exactly what happened”.

He added, “So I am happy to tell all Kwarans that up till now we don’t have any report of a suspicious case not to talk of a confirmed case. I can say that that boy’s case was a mismanaged malaria disease in the first hospital.”

Meanwhile, Daily Trust gathered that the private hospital which was temporarily shut following the suspected outbreak would be re-opened this week while it is being fumigated against any form of viral disease.  

Government says it had procured laboratory equipment for Ebola test which would be stationed at the State Diagnostic Centre, Ilorin.