Anxiety as Kano Fails to Unravel Killer Disease, Confirms 3 Deaths, 284 Infections
Palpable anxiety permeates Kano State as government said it has not been able to identify the disease that has been killing people since the 10th day of March.
The state commissioner for health, Aminu Ibrahim-Tsanyawa, told newsmen at a press conference on Monday that the disease has infected 284 people and killed three but that the ministry was still awaiting the results of samples analyses to identify the disease and establish its cause(s).
He said his ministry has been working with the National Agency for Food, Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) and the State Consumer Protection Council (KSCPC), while the government has deployed personnel and scaled up surveillance in the 44 LGAs to check the circulation certain products suspected to have caused the disease.
According to him, “Water, blood and different instant drink flavour powder samples have been taken for tests to pin down a diagnosis, ranging from food-borne disease, food poisoning, Lassa Fever, Yellow Fever, Dengue Fever, Chemical poisoning to Toxix Hepatitis,”
The commissioner said the disease was suspected to be caused by a certain contaminated drink-flavour and a brand of expired instant drink product which some people bought and consumed in about 13 local government areas of the state.
He named the affected local government areas as Dala Gwale, Kano Municipal, Fage, Ungogo, Kumbotso, Tarauni, Bunkure, Rano, Dawakin Kudu, Dawakin Tofa, Gwarzo and Dambatta.
He also said the index case, a six-year-old girl developed abdominal pain, vomiting, jaundice and urinating blood (hematuria) after drinking water bought from a vendor who fetched from a borehole at a cemetery in the metropolis.
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