Weeks after Delta State announced recording mysterious deaths in two of its communities Ute-Okpu and Idumesa in Ikah North-East Local Government Area results showed that the deaths were traceable to Yellow Fever.
Commissioner for Health, Mordi Ononye, who made this disclosure while briefing the reporters on the outcome of the state government’s investigation of the mysterious deaths, said the result of samples taken from the patients and sent to laboratories points at Yellow Fever as the cause of the deaths.
The disease outbreak initially claimed 15 lives before the state government led by the Health Commissioner and his team of public health officials stepped in on the invitation of the communities with a view to unraveling the mysterious disease.
Mordi explained that presently, the number of deaths recorded has increased to 22 while the results of the tests he said are helping the state government to go into more definitive actions as they await the final confirmatory result from the regional reference laboratory based in Dakar.
According to Mordi, the state has drawn the attention of the Nigeria Center for Disease Control and primary health care department agencies that have in turn sent in their team to support whatever the state is currently doing.
The Commissioner said Yellow Fever sufferers may show sign of fever, headache, body pains, vomiting with or without blood, bleeding from nose and mouth, some convulse and passed on while some recover without medication.
The DG State Orientation Bureau, Eugene Uzum, said the body would immediately embark on sensitization of its rural dwellers on health protocols of Yellow Fever.
