Ebola: Ekiti Govt. Cautions Against Spread of Panic Messages

Ekiti State Commissioner for Health, Prof. Olusola Fasubaa on Thursday charged medical personnel to guard against the spread of panic messages about the dreaded Ebola virus through the net.

Fasubaa, who spoke at a news conference in his office in Ado-Ekiti, described such messages as wicked, saying it has led to the untimely death of non- Ebola patient in the state.

He said the death of a health worker from Ogotun-Ekiti who had come to the state capital for an official assignment, but slumped was due to unprofessional conduct of some medics.

Fasubaa said the alleged unprofessional conducts of some medics in Ado-Ekiti Hospitals actually led to the eventual death of the 60- year-old women.

“On August 20, a woman health-care giver at Ogotun-Ekiti, who was said not to have had any complaints of illness in the last two months came to Ado-Ekiti.

“Also, the woman does not have current history of travel outside the state (according to her neighbors).

“She gets to Data Bank of the Ministry of Health at about 1p.m and collapsed after coughing and vomiting blood was immediately tagged Ebola victim.

“The medical personnel, without any observation or adequate history concluded that she was suffering from Ebola disease and was abandoned.

“People around the hospital, especially the medical personnel allegedly started sending SMS around, and because of this, four different private hospitals rejected her.

“Due to the SMS that, it was an Ebola case, the   woman subsequently died late in the evening as a result of the  unnecessary write-ups in the social media, “Fasubaa said.

He said the attitude was counter-productive to the efforts of the state government in curtailing the spread of the disease in the state.

The commissioner recalled that similar misinformation recently caused row at the NYSC camp in the state when a young corps member collapsed and everybody ran away on suspicion that it was an Ebola case.

He said that it took the intervention of his ministry to save the corps member from an untimely death after he was left unattended to for several hours.

The corps member, according to him was later diagnosed to have suffered from an inadequately treated malaria.

He said that the National Laboratory, Lagos has since confirmed that he was negative to the virus.

The Commissioner warned the general public against causing panic on Ebola outbreak, saying no such records have been witnessed in the state.