Benue State Links Unknown Illness To Contaminated Water

A strange illness that has left four peopel dead  and 15 other hospitalised in Benue State has been linked to contaminated water.

This is according to the state’s Commission for Health and Human Services, Sunday Ongbabo.

The commissioner reveaeld that fololwing the cases of death and hospitalisation of 15 others, residents of the community have been urged to look for an alternative source of water for drinking and domestic use.

Ongbabo, said the controversy which occurred in Obi local government area was due to the consumption of the water with chemical contermination.

He said residents of the area have been urged to, as a matter of urgency, look for another source of water for drinking and other domestic use, assuring that the patients who have been brought into the Benue State University Teaching Hospital (BSUTH) in Makurdi are closely being monitored.

Ongbabo said: “We are at the community right now as I speak to you; we have transferred those who are down with the sickness to the teaching hospital for thorough monitoring.”

“Since the victims showed same symptoms particularly, diarrhoea, we have advised the people to stop using their source of water because the water is likely contaminated,” Ongbabo said.

He also said that officials of the state government will take the water for analysis before they can arrive at anything. “Right now, we have advised them not to use the water or fish from there,” he added.