FROM PUNCH:
No fewer than 300 pupils of the Federal Government Girls’ College, Efon Alaaye, Ekiti State, have been hospitalised due to an outbreak of an unknown disease.
Signs of the outbreak of the disease started manifesting on October 10, when some pupils were said to have started vomiting and stooling, creating fears of a cholera outbreak.
But the state government through the Commissioner for Health, Dr. Olurotimi Ojo, has come out to dismiss it as “diarrhoea” while medical investigation has begun.
Parents and guardians are now trooping to the school to check if their children and wards are among the victims.
The Principal of the school, Mrs Grace Ogunyomi, was said to have reported the case to the state government on Wednesday for prompt action.
It was learnt that the school authorities had been taking the patients to Efon General Hospital in batches since the epidemic started.
It was gathered that Governor Ayodele Fayose had ordered the commissioner to mobilise health care workers to the school to arrest the situation.
Of the about 300 pupils said to be infected, only 31 of them were still receiving treatment while others had been treated and discharged, a source revealed on Thursday.
Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Health, Dr. Folakemi Olomojobi, who spoke on behalf of the Commissioner, confirmed that only 20 of the infected pupils were still in the hospital, adding that the ministry had brought in environmental health officials.
“We have alerted the water corporation to chlorinate their water. They have about six boreholes and we have got them chlorinated, because we knew as professionals that the water could be a source.
“We are trying to look into their environment, so that we can get where such could have broken out. We want to know how they dump their faeces and how they discharge their sewages,” she added.
