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Group criticises Kwara commissioner over poor handling of lassa fever outbreak

By Editor
20 August 2017   |   2:46 am
Oro-Ago Unity Alliance has criticised the Kwara State Commissioner for Health, Alhaji Suleiman Alege, following the nonchalant attitude he put up after the reported outbreak of lassa fever in Oro Ago community of Ifelodun Local Council.

Oro-Ago Unity Alliance has criticised the Kwara State Commissioner for Health, Alhaji Suleiman Alege, following the nonchalant attitude he put up after the reported outbreak of lassa fever in Oro Ago community of Ifelodun Local Council.

The body therefore urged the state government to do the needful before more avoidable deaths are recorded. In a statement by the group’s President, Prof. Olu Dada, it said it read with utter dismay the contents of the commissioner’s press briefing about three weeks after deaths were recorded in Oro Ago from ailments suspected to be lassa fever.

“We find it strange that the Commissioner failed to address the deaths in Oro Ago and spoke only on the incidents at Babanla. Reports reaching us indicated that no fewer than 96 people may have died in small hamlets inhabited by Fulani Bororos along Oro Ago and environs. In any case, we reject the armchair verdict and pronouncement of the Kwara Commissioner for Health.”

The Association said that whereas his counterpart in neighboring Kogi State had promptly responded to a similar outbreak of lassa fever by addressing a press conference, the Kwara Health Commissioner only few days ago chose to disregard the alarm raised by the Oro Ago community.

“A responsible public officer would first send a fact finding mission to the affected community instead of making unwarranted insinuations. He instead sat in his office, failed to visit the community only to pass judgment.”

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