206 Quarantined as Meningitis Kills 26 in Yobe, Gombe

The Yobe State government has quarantined 206 persons following the outbreak of cerebrospinal meningitis in three local government areas in the state, resulting in the death of 20 persons. This was as the Commissioner for Health in Gombe State, Dr Habu Dahiru, disclosed on Monday that the state had lost six persons to the deadly disease.

The spokesman for the Yobe State Ministry of Health, Sulaiman Gimba, told The PUNCH on Thursday that the state recorded 20 deaths in the Potiskum, Fika and Fune local government areas. The deceased victims, Gimba said, were students of Science Technical College, Government Girls Science Technical College, and Federal Government Girls College, all in the Potiskum Local Government Area.

He said the Yobe State government had ordered vaccination to view a view to launching a statewide immunisation campaign to contain the spread of the disease. Gimba said, “On the directive of the state governor, apart from a statewide media sensitisation on the disease, the state Ministry of Health has deployed 20 medical personnel to work with all the medical personnel of the Potiskum General Hospital and the three primary health centres in the three LGAs to manage the situation.

“An urgent statewide mass vaccination campaign has already been programmed, and will commence as soon as the state takes delivery of the required drugs. The order for the drugs has already been placed.” He said the state Commissioner for Education, Dr. MuhammadIdris, his Permanent Secretary, and the Executive Secretary of the state’s Science Technical Board as well as the chairman of the Teaching Service Board were directed to immediately relocate to Potiskum temporarily as part of the swift response.

“Immediately after the outbreak claiming the lives of the 20 students, Governor Mai Mala Buni directed the state Ministry of Education to temporarily relocate to Potiskum for swift response,” Gimba added. On his part, the Gombe State health commissioner debunked the claim of an outbreak of a strange disease in the state, saying those who died were killed of cerebrospinal meningitis. Dahiru said samples collected from  Nafada and Funakaye and subjected to laboratory test confirmed CSM as the killer disease. He said, “Positive cases from Funakaye are two, 20 are negative. Results are being awaited for seven. Number of mortalities recorded six – five in Nafada, one in Funakaye.

Earlier in the week,the lawmaker representing Dukku/Nafada Federal Constituency of Gombe State in the House of Representatives,Abdullahi El-Rasheed, had raised the alarm that a strange disease killed 30 persons in Gombe State. But the health commissioner, on Thursday, described the claim as unfounded.

He said, “We have disease notification officer who sends reports. We received rumour which triggered our investigation that people died in hundreds, that there are cases of deaths. We went round to trace them but we didn’t see the graves. Someone, stayed in Abuja to state deaths, you should ask him where he got his data. Formally, we received  cases with symptoms suggestive of cerebrospinal meningitis in the Nafada LGA on the 18th of February and immediately swung into action

 “I cannot activate an integrated management system now because we have not reached the threshold for cerebrospinal meningitis outbreak which is 10 confirmed cases in a population of 100,000 people in one week.  “We are now at the alert threshold in the Nafada and Funakaye LGAs. I have since day one activated an Emergency Operation Centre, comprising of the WHO, UNICEF, NCDC for suspected CSM and also ruled out Lassa fever.”

Source: Punch