When strange but curable disease ravaged Jigawa village

Jitters have enveloped Wangara District of Jigawa state, since a strange disease reportedly claimed the lives of about 50 children and adults in Gidan Dugus village, Dutse local government area of the state. BAYO ALABIRA reports
The recent alarm raised over a strange disease which said is said to have killed about 50 children, ages between 12 months to five, among others, in Gidan Dugus village of Wangara District in Dutse local government area of Jigawa state, has caused fears down the spine of the residents even as the incident has drawn unprecedented attention. But reports stated that the disease has been identified as chronic Typhoid and Malaria complication and curable.

How the bad news spread
The strange and grisly disease was said to have started since July 2017. The strange but curable disease was discovered after it claimed the lives of many children and rendered so many parents childless. It has also caused fear and agony in the minds of every father or mother that lived in that village plus the entire neigbourhood of the communities.

Location
Gidan Dugus village is located along the border between Kano state and Jigawa state. It was just like an isolated island that is standing in the midst of the ocean. Unfortunately, the only road that links Gidan Dugus to the rest of the state has been left deplorable and rough. Even so, the road is diverted, before the town of Karneya along the Dutse Ringim road.
The village is about 40 km metres away from Dutse, the state capital. The strange killer disease that snatched the lives of about 50 children had left many families in agony and pain of losing their loved ones.

How the disease started
The symptom of this disease is said to manifest through severe body pain, joint pain and body weakness, severe head-ache, vomiting from time to time among other complications. The victims or patients were said to lose weight because of the loss of appetite.
The problem had been lingering and killing innocent children of these communities for quite sometime now without cure, because the affected people failed to make the problem or agony known to the authorities saddled with the responsibility of providing health care services to stopped the disease.

Development
The condition of these communities in Gidan Dugus can be likened to isolated people. Because, not even a mere medicine shop is found in the village, there is also no health personnel in the village. There is no sign of any development in this village. Even the basic human needs such as physical, safety, love, self-esteem and self-actualization are completely absent.
The village has no good source of drinking water and schools. This is why the dangerous disease simply identified as Typhoid and malaria are ravaging the communities like carcinoma and psoriasis.
The only semblance of school in the village has no single facility that qualifies it as a school. The school is supposed to have over 100 children enrollment, but has only 10 pupils. Therefore, development of any sort is absent in this village.

Agony
The mood of the people in Gidan Dugus before the outbreak or rather, before the straw that broke the Camel’s back which exposed the trauma of the strange disease that kept killing young people on a daily basis. This is because every father and every mother was wearing a grim face as a result of the grisly and painful death of their loved ones daily.
The victims have been in this sympathetic condition for long, both those whose children had already died and those whose children were yet to be infected. The first time reporters visited the village, it was in mourning mood, and devastated.
One of the affected parents whose children died, Malam Haladu Usman, lamented in soft sympathetic tune “within 14 days, I lost seven of my children, 3 males and 4 females. The children aged between 3,2,1, including infants. They died one after the other. So there was a day I lost three”.
Also, a parent, Salisu Abdullahi , narrated “I lost four of my children in one week, despite several efforts made to get medication from nearby clinics, but the illness persisted and resulted in their deaths. “I was scared by this unknown sickness which consumed the lives of innocent children in this community”.
However, the Ward Head of Gidan Dugus, Malam Umar Dashiru, also talked about his agony of seeing his people and entire community in mourning mood. “This is the catastrophe I had ever seen or heard of in my life time. My people buried five to six children on daily basis due to the strange illness”. He said.
Another elder in the community, Malam Bashari Galadima, who told reporters that it was not too long they had reported the case to the Jigawa state government. “Immediately the government sent a team of medical personal. They took a sample of blood of the infected children for test. But we are still waiting for the result so that vaccines or whatever drugs they have should be brought to us to rescue our children”.

Government’s action
Immediately after the development was brought to public knowledge by the press the state government reacted. When contacted, the government through the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Health, Alhaji Ali Garba Dandidi, who confirmed the outbreak of the disease, said “control measure was already taken by then, which stopped the epidemic with immediate effect”.
The Permanent Secretary continued: “only 39 children below seven years were reportedly to have died, 31 children hospitalized as contained in a record available to us. Our investigation revealed that the problem started sometime in July, the community refused report to us, the ministry of health or go to public health centre nearer to them”.
“Instead, they were patronizing chemist and other medical vendors in their village. Until October 27, that we got the report the ministry of health sent a medical team and took the sample of the patients for laboratory test which confirmed the disease to be severe malaria and typhoid. And when the treatment was administered on the patients, death stopped immediately”.

Rescue
Immediately the issue was blown open, the state government responded with intervention measures. The measure included the construction of a befitting clinic which is ongoing. The measure also included construction of a befitting school and provision of drinking water, among others.
Also recently, a team of medical personnel led by the Head of Laboratory, Rasheed Shekoni Federal University, Dutse Teaching Hospital, DR Mohammadu Maishahada, has visited the village and administered some drugs on members of the community.
During the visit to the village, the team was accompanied by another team from the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NDC), who took their time explaining to the villagers on how they should take care of themselves, how to report any unusual illness or sickness to the nearest health centre for immediate response by medical experts.
Also, the state Commissioner of Health, Dr Abba Zakari Umar, said state government has spent over N1.6 billion on construction and renovation of hospitals, as well as other health facilities across the 27 local government area of the state.
Dr Zakari explained that when the present government came to power in 2015, some actions were taken to improve the health status in the state. “What we did first was to amend the state’s health policy from Gunduma Health System to Primary Health Care Development Agency (PHCDA) and established PHC offices in 27 local government areas of the state”.
Presently, the problem has been solved. The people in the village can now breathe and have a relief over their traumatic condition which they found themselves since the past few months. Now, the village is in global focus.

 

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