Alhasan made this known yesterday in Abuja at a press briefing to clear the air on the purported outbreak of Ebola disease in the country.
He said that laboratory investigation had revealed that it was a case of Dengue hemorrhagic fever and not Ebola fever as erroneously reported.
The minister said that Nigeria actually recorded the first case of Dengue fever caused by mosquitoes like malaria fever.
According to him, Dengue hemorrhagic fever is caused by a virus named Dengue fever virus, DFV, which is transmitted by mosquitoes mostly in urban and semi-urban areas. He explained that the virus responsible for transmitting the disease called Aedes albopictus was being monitored by the ministry at a research centre in Enugu.
Alhasan urged Nigerians to give environmental sanitation and mosquito bites priority in treatment to reduce and eliminate vectors causing Dengue fever in the country.
“All our port health posts and boarder medical centres have being put on the alert to screen travelers from countries with confirmed Ebola hemorrhagic fever occurrences. Nigerians traveling to these countries are advised to be careful and should report any illnesses with the above stated symptoms to the nearest health facility,” the minister said.
Amid the fears surrounding the West African countries following the Ebola outbreak, the Sierra Leonean government has banned the movement of corpses from neighbouring
countries. Burial should be in the country the person died and family members must not bring the bodies back home, the country’s Ministry of Health ordered.
It also instituted a “temporary measure” part of which includes reactivation of its ‘Active Surveillance Protocol’ that will see all travellers into the country from either Guinea or Liberia subjected to strict screening to ascertain their state of health.
Since February, Guinea has been battling an outbreak of severe hemorrhagic fever which was later confirmed to be partly the cause of the deadly Ebola virus.
Over 100 cases have been recorded with over 80 deaths across the three neighbouring countries.
Liberia has registered eight suspected cases with six deaths, two of which have been confirmed to be Ebola.
In Sierra Leone, the authorities say investigations were ongoing on the cause of five reported deaths in a region near the Guinean capital, Conakry.
Source: Nigerian Pilot
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