Kwara State government said yesterday that it would continue to treat the reported cases of a ‘strange illness’ among Fulani residents of Ifelodun and Irepodun local government areas as mere rumours until the Virology Centre in Lagos came out with the report on the samples taken from victims.
The Commissioner for Health, Alhaji Suleiman Alege, also debunked claims of fatalities from the the disease. Alege said cases being reported at two health facilities in Oro-Ago, where the illness was said to have first broken out, were not related to the symptoms reported by some people about the illness.
The commissioner said a team from the World Health Organisation (WHO), the Epidemiological Services Unit of the ministry and disease notification officers at the state and local government levels had been working round the clock to unravel the mystery about the said disease. According to him, they have collected samples from two hospitals which have been sent to the Virology Centre in Lagos for analysis. Alege said the ministry had also mobilised more health personnel from Offa Local Government Area and Ilorin to the communities in order to fullly take charge of the situation.
He said: “Until we have the result of the Virology Centre, we shall continue to treat the issue as mere rumour because there is a laid down process for reporting disease outbreak and Kwara State is noted and has even recently been commended by the Federal Government for having a strong disease monitoring and reporting system in the country.”
The samples, he said, were collected from Oro-Ago and Ajase-Ipo. The commissioner added that the state was expecting the result of the tests by Friday. The strange illness which has reportedly killed about 74 Fulani people at Oro-Aro in Ifelodun Local Government Area, later spread to another Fulani settlement, Kara, in Ajase-Ipo, in the same local government and killed about five people on Tuesday.
