The Ministry of Health has debunked a memo from the National Obstetric Fistula Centre, Abakaliki, Ebonyi state, alerting workers of an outbreak of a new variant of COVID-19.
The memo titled ‘’FYI: COVID is on the prowl again, caution,
please,'' read;
“With the new variant, BA.4 and BA.5 COVID delta, there is
no cough, no fever. It’s a lot of joint pain, headache, neck and upper back
pain, general weakness, loss of appetite and pneumonia.
“Sore throat that resembles strep throat, and of course, more
virulent and with a higher mortality rate. It takes less time to go to
extremes. Sometimes without symptoms.
“This means that the virus spreads and spreads directly to
the lungs, causing acute respiratory stress caused by viral pneumonia. This
explains why it has become sharp, more virulent and deadly. Please, be
extremely careful.
“Do not keep this information to yourself; share it as much
as you can, especially with your friends.”
However, in a statement issued on Friday, September 1,
Patricia Deworitshe, spokesperson of the minister of health described it as a
false claim.
The statement read;
“The information from the purported internal memo emanating
from National Obstetric Fistula Centre, Abakaliki, in which the Head of
Clinical Services warned the staff to take caution as Covid-19 was on the prowl
again, cannot be sustained and therefore not true.
“The public should be informed that no new Covid-19 case or
infection has been detected in our Centre. No new Covid-19 patient has been
presented or diagnosed in our Centre for the past one year.
“There is no rise in COVID-19 cases in Abakaliki or in
Ebonyi State in general. The information contained in the said internal memo
was a product of unverified and unsubstantiated flying news from social media.
“The general public is therefore advised to disregard the
memo and its content. It is only the Nigerian Centre for Disease and Control
(NCDC) that is statutorily empowered to release information on such matters as
Covid-19.”
