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INTRODUCTION
A “mysterious” disease that kills patients within 24 hours has claimed at least 18 lives in a
southeastern Nigerian town, the government said. (1-3) The outbreak started in the Ode-Irele
town, Ondo state, and spread rapidly. “Twenty-three people were affected and 18 deaths were
recorded,” the Ondo state health commissioner, Dayo Adeyanju, said on Saturday.
"Seventeen people have died of the mysterious disease since it broke out early this week in
Ode-Irele town," the government spokesman for Ondo state, Kayode Akinmade, told AFP
news agency on Saturday. (1,2)
Adeyanju said he had gone on a "field visit" with various health organizations, including
WHO, and the Nigerian Centre for Disease control. He also said that there wasn't any need
for quarantine, because the cases are "not contagious" and that they were "working from the
scientific viewpoint". He told the Nigerian Premium Times that the disease, which is
unidentified, seems to be attacking the central nervous system, describing the mystery as "a
case search to unravel the cause (of the disease)". (4-6) Local health officials and World
Health Organization experts are now in the town to try to identify the disease. The World
Health Organisation meanwhile said it had information on 14 cases with at least 12 dead.(7,8)
The disease, whose symptoms include headache, weight loss, blurred vision and loss of
consciousness, killed the victims within a day of falling ill, he said. (9) Laboratory tests have
so far ruled out Ebola or any other virus or bacterial infection, and according to the World
Health Organization‟s Gregory Hartl, the "current hypothesis is herbicides. (10,11) “Common
symptoms were sudden blurred vision, headache, loss of consciousness followed by death,
occurring within 24 hours,” WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic told. (12,13) Another WHO
spokesman, Gregory Hartl, said that according to a preliminary report, all those affected
began showing symptoms between 13 and 15 April. (14) Akinmade said health officials and
experts from the government and aid agencies, as well as WHO epidemiologists, had arrived
in Ode-Irele to search for answers. (15,16) The state‟s health commissioner, Adeyanju, said
that he and his officials had gone on a “field visit with the WHO, Unicef, NCDC (Nigerian
Centre for Disease Control). This was basically a case search to unravel the cause (of the
disease),” he said. (14,17,18)
The Ondo state government has set up emergency task teams to try and control the situation
and stop it getting out of control. The emergency teams consist of five units dealing with
contact tracing, forensics, case management, education and media control. (1,2,4)
Outside a total of 17 deaths recorded, in the past 72 hours we have not recorded new cases.
There is no patient of the disease in any hospital and the disease has not spread beyond the
town. (11,19) Jasarevic said blood and urine samples had been taken from two victims and
cerebrospinal fluid from another. (9) “All samples have been sent to Lagos University
Teaching Hospital this morning, and results are still pending. Investigations are still
ongoing,” he said. (20) Those who have been affected have been quarantined at the General
Hospital in Irele, with other patients moved out of the facility. (4)
CONCLUSION
The outbreak of a mysterious disease in Ode-Irele, Ondo state which has claimed the lives of
about 18 people has been attributed to the consumption of contaminated alcohol. The disease,
whose symptoms include headache, weight loss, blurred vision and loss of consciousness,
3. Suresh Rewar,2015
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killed the victims within a day of falling ill. The disease, which is unidentified, seems to be
attacking the central nervous system. All samples have been sent to Lagos University
Teaching Hospital this morning, and results are still pending. Investigations are still ongoing.
A preliminary laboratory investigation indicates that the outbreak cannot be attributed to any
infectious organism, bacterial or viral. The outbreak is also clearly not due to Ebola virus
disease as feared by many at first.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors reported no conflict of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content
and writing of the paper and no funding has been received on this work. Ethical Approval
was not required.
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