Via IPPmedia.com, a Guardian on Sunday report: Yet another suspect Ebola patient admitted in Mwanza.
Fears of a possible outbreak of the deadly Ebola disease are rising following fresh reports that another ‘suspect’ patient has been admitted at the Sekou Teure regional hospital in Mwanza city.
The patient is suspected to be suffering from severe symptoms that resemble those of the dreaded disease -- less than a week after news earlier broke in Karagwe district, Kagera region, claiming that a patient with similar symptoms was also hospitalized at Nyakahanga designated hospital in the region.
In the wake of last week’s reports from Nyakahanga, the government quickly dispatched a team of medical officers and nurses to the area, all fully equipped to thoroughly diagnose a patient whose symptoms had since not been fully confirmed to be that of the viruses that cause Ebola to date.
According to the Mwanza Regional Medical Officer (RMO), Dr Valentino Francis Bangi, the Mwanza case was first reported at the Sekou Teure regional hospital and later referred to Bugando referral hospital – before the patient was sent back for readmission at the Sekou Teure facility.
The RMO told The Guardian On Sunday in a telephone interview yesterday that his hospital had received a patient on Monday this week who, upon proper diagnosis, was found to be suffering from dysentery and severe abdominal pains. The patient also suffered from urethral strictures, as a result of which he had difficulty passing urine.
According to Dr Bangi, the first onset of strictures often cause ‘mental confusion’ among patients. Such symptoms, he added, also cause ‘fear among the people’ but he has urged them not to panic or to be afraid when they come across such patients.
“It’s a normal disease … despite its symptoms,” he says.
He has also dispelled further fears of a possible outbreak of Ebola because his diagnosis on the patient, a young man aged between 23 and 27 years, displayed symptoms that were less severe than those seen in Ebola victims.
“I am 80 percent sure that the symptoms seen in the patient are not those of Ebola …,” he argued.
