The Delta state Commissioner for Health, Dr Mordi Ononye, has said tests conducted to ascertain the cause of strange deaths recorded in Ute-Okpu and Idumesa communities in Ika North East Local Government Area of the state came back positive for yellow fever infection.
Briefing newsmen in Asaba, the state capital, Ononye said that 22 deaths have so far been recorded with seven active cases receiving treatment in hospitals across the state.
He explained that laboratory results of the samples collected pointed to the age-long disease. He explained that the results would be further authenticated at the Reference Region Laboratory in Dakar, Senegal where the samples have also been sent to.
Ononye said the State Government was collaborating with health-related agencies to step up measures to contain the spread of the disease.
Maintaining that yellow fever usually manifests much more bizarre symptoms than malaria, Ononye said “some patients are with fever, body pains, headache, vomiting with or without blood. Some begin to bleed from the nose or mouth. Some of those we have just convulse and some recover very well even without coming to the hospital.”