The Kwara state government has announced the immediate closure of a
private hospital in Ilorin over a suspected Ebola Virus contamination.
Prof. Sunday Opabola, the Chairman, Ebola Viral Disease Control
Committee, Kwara State, has just announced that there is a suspected case of
Ebola disease in the state.
“The suspect is a seven-month old baby, who came with his parents from Ibadan for a visit at Ilorin. The baby has been isolated and samples taken to Lagos for testing.”
Opabola said told journalists today.
“By 9 am yesterday,
I was called to the ministry of health that a proprietor of a private
hospital who is a pediatrician reported a suspected case on admission in
his hospital.
The suspected patient is a seven-month
old child that came to Ilorin with the mother and she came out with
suspicion of malaria and was admitted at Surulere clinic and they
started treating him for malaria, that is on the 10th of this month,
four days ago. After managing him for two days, there was no
improvement, he was referred to a pediatrician.
“After clinical assessment, he apparently saw some symptoms that look like
Ebola. These symptoms basically fever, diarrhea, vomiting that were
being taken care of before in other hospitals but he now saw that this
vomiting consists of blood and that was where he made a report.
“Now if it were not in this situation we are, I am sure he couldn’t
have made any report because some other diseases could have presented
these same symptoms, even malaria in children would present something
like. Other viral infections,
viral hemorrhagic 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.”