Two persons have died and 167 residents have been hospitalized following the outbreak of an infection suspected to be food poisoning in Kano state.
The State’s Ministry of Health confirmed that the affected patients showed symptoms of haematuria, which causes bloody urine or dark urine, fever, lethargy, and sometimes jaundice.
The victims reportedly consumed expired citric acid powdered drinks.
The Co-Ordinator of the sector 4 command, joint border patrol team of the Nigerian Customs Service in the north-west, Aliyu Mohammed, had raised the alarm that expired citric acid drinks were in circulation, and that the products are common in the market given that Ramadan is around the corner.
Mohammed said the NCS seized 84 cartons of the products, which have expired since 2019.
He said, “Fasting will soon come. The people now have the habit of importing very expired items. These are the flavors. Any man who performs his fasting in the evening will like something very delicious but these things have expired since 2019.
“We have arrested about 624 pieces in each carton and we have 84 cartons.”
An epidemiologist in the state ministry of health, Bashir Lawan, told journalists on Tuesday that “these symptoms are classical of ongoing haemolysis (breakage of red blood cells) and bleeding.
“We initially suspected viral haemorrhagic fever but the test results came back from the National Reference Laboratory as negative for Yellow fever and Lassa fever. But we are still awaiting the test of Dengue fever.”
He said the index case was a six-year old girl recorded on March 6, 2021.
The state government has designated the Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital (AKTH), Murtala Muhammad Specialist Hospital, Infectious Disease Hospital, Sheikh Jidda Hospital, Waziri Shehu Gidado Hospital, Rano General Hospital and two hospitals in Dawakin Tofa Local Government for the treatment of those affected by the outbreak.
