The Ministry of Health has denied statements made in a memo issued by the National Obstetric Fistula Centre in Abakaliki, Ebonyi state, alerting staff to an apparent breakout of a new strain of COVID-19.
The message headlined ‘FYI: COVID is on the prowl again, please exercise caution,’ stated that the “new wave of COVID-19 is more lethal than the first.”
“There is no cough or fever with the new variants, BA.4 and BA.5 COVID delta.” The symptoms include “a lot of joint pain, headache, neck and upper back pain, general weakness, loss of appetite, and pneumonia,” according to the alert.
“A sore throat similar to strep throat, but more virulent and with a higher mortality rate.” Going to extremes requires less time. Sometimes there are no 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.”
Patricia Deworitshe, the Minister of Health’s spokesman, described the memo’s contents as pure fiction in a statement made on Friday. She revealed that Tunji Alausa, the Minister of State for Health and Social Welfare, had met with the Fistula Centre’s administration to discuss the alleged memo.
“The information from the purported internal memo emanating from the National Obstetric Fistula Centre, Abakaliki, in which the Head of Clinical Services warned the staff to be cautious as Covid-19 was on the prowl again, cannot be sustained and is thus false,” the statement states.
“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 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.”
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