August 14, (THEWILL) – The Management of the University of Abuja Teaching Hospital, Gwagwalada, has debunked reports of an outbreak of Marburg Virus Disease (MVD) in its facility.
Public Relations Officer of the Hospital, Sani Suleiman, issued the rebuttal in a chat with newsmen on Sunday.
Suleiman, was reacting to media reports of a purported memo issued by the hospital to alert its staff on the MVD and the surge in COVID-19 in the country.
The memo titled ‘Outbreak of Marburg Disease and COVID-19 Virus Infection’, read in part: “The management of the Abuja University Teaching Hospital wishes to notify the entire hospital community of an outbreak of Marburg disease and an upsurge in COVID-19 infection.
“Consequently, the attention of all Heads of Departments, and members of staff is hereby drawn to ensure adequate surveillance and hygiene by observing all protocols of prevention.
“More details will be sent on our various social media platforms on the outbreaks in due course.”
But in a clarification on Sunday, Suleiman, said the memo, which unfortunately, was “misconstrued”, is “meant to be an internal memo within the hospital community, for our staff to be conscious incase there is an outbreak or incase patients are coming to the hospital for treatment.
“They didn’t post the precautionary measures, rather they just posted the memo.
“So, it was misconstrued by one of the staff. Infact, the hard copy has not even gone out, it was meant for the hospital community to be conscious of the disease. You know some people are still negligent of the COVID-19 and if the hospital personnel are not taking precautionary measures, it will spread.
“We are just sensitising them to be conscious, So it’s not like there’s an outbreak. We haven’t recorded any case of Marburg.
“People should disregard it and we are going to follow up with a correction.”
The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), has said that country is at moderate risk of an outbreak of the Marburg virus disease.
According to the NCDC, following the confirmation of an outbreak of the disease in Ghana by the World Health Organisation (WHO), on July 17, the Centre, said that it raised a high alert given the proximity of Ghana to Nigeria.
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