No outbreak of strange disease in Gombe – Health Commissioner

The Gombe State Commissioner of Health, Dr Habu Dahiru, has said there is no outbreak of a strange disease in Nafada Local Government Area of the state.

Dahiru while responding to a report of an outbreak of a strange disease alleged to have killed 30 children in Nafada LGA, told Daily Trust that an Emergency Response Team, composed of epidemiologists and other health experts, were deployed to Nafada, to investigate and report back to the ministry.

“The team, on arrival, carried out an investigation on the number of deaths as contained in the social media speculations and found out that only three people had died under the period as against 20 reported on the social media,” he said.

Dr Dahiru called on people of Nafada not to panic as the three deaths recorded were not as a result of any outbreak of a strange disease but normal diseases.

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“Yes, there were cases of disease which turned out to be mild illness, and we have taken samples and most of them returned negative. As such, there was no outbreak of any disease in Nafada as erroneously reported in the social media,” he added.

Daily Trust reports that a Facebook post written by one Mubarak Manu, who identified himself as community health scientist, last week went viral on social media platforms, where he claimed that there was an outbreak of a strange illness in Nafada LGA “which kills within 24 hours, if proper professional attention was not received”.

Meanwhile, the House of Representatives has mandated Federal Ministry of Health to tackle the spread of the strange disease that has claimed almost 30 lives in communities across Nafada after a member representing Dukku/Nafada Federal Constituency, Abdullahi El-Rasheed, had during plenary on Tuesday moved a motion of public importance.

Presenting the motion, he said the outbreak of the disease is spreading and has already claimed the lives of children and youths in the affected communities.

The lawmaker said the symptoms of the disease were severe headache; stomach pain; vomiting; smelly stool; legs and general body pain which ultimately ended in death of the persons affected.

This report is published for the Media-EIS Fellowship Program, a collaborative partnership among Breakthrough Action-Nigeria, Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), and Africa Field Epidemiology Network (AFENET).