The legislator representing Olamaboro Local Government Area of Kogi State, Mr Ujah Anthony Alewo, has disclosed that no fewer than 50 people from Enugu border town of Etteh community have lost their lives to a strange disease.
Alewo, while moving a motion of urgent public importance on the floor of the House on Tuesday, expressed dismay over the incidence.
He said the residents of the community had been thrown into pandemonium over the yet to be identified disease.
According to him, some health experts were of the opinion that the disease was marked by such symptoms as headache, red eyes, inability to defecate and urinate as well as loss of appetite.
The victims of the illness, he said, usually die after one week of contracting the disease.
He said the resort to herbal treatment and local health centres within the locality had not yielded any positive result.
When computed, he said the death toll of the victims falls within the age bracket of 25 to 40. He warned the development was enough to decimate the prime population of the community with its concomitant impacts on agricultural, social and economic activities in the state if it was not checked with the urgency it deserved.
He called on government to dispatch a team of health experts to the area to assess the level of threat of the disease and provide palliatives to cushion the effects. He was seconded by his colleague from Dekina, Biraidu Moses Ododo, who empathised with the people.
In his ruling, the Speaker, Prince Mathew Kolawole asked the House to observe a minute of silence for the departed souls.
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