Government dispels rumour of fresh outbreak of Ebola in Lagos

The Lagos State government on Tuesday dispelled the rumour of fresh outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus disease (EVD) in the state, urging the public to ignore the message being circulated in the social media.

At a joint news conference addressed by Jide Idris, the commissioner for health; Lateef Ibirogba, the commissioner for information and strategy, and Wale Ahmed, the commissioner for special duties, the government urged the public to discountenance the message of new cases of Ebola being circulated in the social media.

The message first hit the public via the social media on April 9, with the claim that three infected persons had died and 12 others down with the disease.

But, according to Idris, findings by the government showed that the rumour was generated from two different websites, explaining that the government swung into action to verify the source and viability of the rumour, its author and discovered that it was untrue.

The commissioner said that the second rumour concerning two Chinese visitors from Sierra Leone was posted on twitter @iChexo on April 12, claiming that the two Chinese died of EVD at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) girls same day, saying that investigation carried out at LUTH confirmed that there was no such case at LUTH.

“We believe that the author of these materials simply wanted to generate traffic to their websites which would appear successfully achieved. We wish to assure you that health workers have continued to maintain a high index of suspicion of Ebola virus disease and other viral haemorrhagic fevers.

“The operations and surveillance activities of the Ebola Emergency Operations Centre (EEOC) have continued despite the containment of the EVD and the declaration of Nigeria as Ebola-free by WHO in 2014,” he said.