Kaduna Govt confirms there’s suspected case of Ebola at ABU

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The Kaduna State Government has confirmed that there is indeed a suspected case of Ebola Virus Disease in the state. This is contrary to the claim by the claim by Dan Nwomeh, the spokesperson to the Minister of Health than an earlier report by this newspaper on the matter was false. PREMIUM TIMES had reported that a 19- year old student of Law at the Ahmadu Bello University was suspected to be down with the deadly Ebola virus in Kaduna and was on admission at the Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital, ABUTH. As indicated in the report, Bilyaminu Umar, spokesperson for ABUTH, confirmed the development. But no sooner than our report was published than the spokesperson to the Minister, Mr. Nwomeh, took to the social media to say the story was false.
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“The Kaduna report is totally untrue,” Mr. Nwomeh tweeted. But the state commissioner of Health, Dr. Thot Dogo, has now confirmed the development to PREMIUM TIMES. Mr. Dogo said in a telephone interview, “That case is a case of a student who took ill, we are just suspecting the Ebola Virus. “So, we have taken his blood sample for test. By tomorrow we are expecting the result of the test sent to Lagos to be ready. “The patient is on isolation in Zaria. By tomorrow in the afternoon, the result will be ready from Lagos. We have already gone  there after the ABUTH authorities alerted us and our rapid response team took the blood sample. “He has been at the hospital for about a week now.

 It’s only fever. But I think he developed rashes with redness of the eyes. So, we are just taking precaution. You know, this Ebola Virus spreads like wild fire.” On whether the state has commenced tracing those in direct contact with the patient, the commissioner said: “No, we have not confirmed. You don’t begin to quarantine people like that. “By the time we get the proof tomorrow, anybody, even his classmates and the rest of them, we will do what we call contact tracing.”

 On the nationality of the patient, the commissioner said, “The patient is a student of Faculty of Law in ABU and not from Guinea.” The Chief Medical Director of ABUTH, Dr. Lawal Khalid replied a text message sent to him on the matter thus: “I can”t confirm it [Ebola] because we don’t  have any test results. We are not taking chances but it is unlikely.”