About 300 students of Federal Government Girls’ College, Efon Alaaye, Ekiti State, have been infected with a yet to be identified disease.
The disease is rumoured to be either diarrhoea or cholera.
Students have been falling ill since the 10th of October, with an escalation on Wednesday, 21st October.
Close to 30 students are currently hospitalised, while others have been treated and discharged.
In response to a report from the school’s principal, health professionals and officials have been deployed by the state government to diagnose, and stem the spread of the disease.
The Commissioner for Health, Ekiti State, Dr Olurotimi Ojo, has said the epidemic is not cholera, but a gastrointestinal infection – diarrhoea. “We have taken blood samples of infected students to the hospital and preliminary test shows that it is not cholera. Its diarrhoea and vomiting.
Further blood tests are still being carried out for accurate confirmation.
Food and water contamination were the early suspects of the infection, but medical results on food and water samples indicate otherwise.
However, the Ministry of Health, Ekiti State, has ordered the water corporation board to chlorinate the school’s water.
Further environmental investigations are still being carried out to determine the source of the infection, “We are trying to look into their environment, so that we can get where such could have broken out,” said Dr Folakemi Olomojobi, permanent secretary of Ekiti State Ministry of Health. We want to know how they dump their faeces and how they dump their sewages.”
The general public is advised not to panic, as the government has the situation under control.
A similar outbreak occurred in Ondo State early on in the year, claiming close to 30 lives. At first, people thought it was Ebola, but it turned out to be methanol poisoning in a locally made gin, popularly known as ‘Ogogoro.’
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