From: Emmanuel Uzor, Abakaliki
Ebonyi State has recorded first Lassa fever survivor since the
establishment of Lassa fever/virology centre which was built and
equipped by the state government.
Daily Sun gathered that the survivor, Victor Ifeanyi Ibekwe, who hails from Ezza-Effium in Ohaukwu Local Government Area of the state, has become the first person to survive the deadly disease since the commissioning of the virology centre by the Minister for Health, Prof Isaac Adewole on September 5, 2016.
Ibekwe, according to his mother, Mrs. Cecilia Ibekwe, a widow, took ill about a month ago and was rushed to the Federal Teaching Hospital, FETHA 2, Abakalik, where he could not get medical attention as a result of doctors’ forced them to seek
help in a private hospital, Christ the King Hospital, Abakaliki.
Narrating their ordeal, Mrs. Ibekwe, said her son complained of severe headache and was administered with drugs which could not stop the headache until he was taken to the Federal Teaching Hospital, Abakaliki, where they met doctors’ on strike.
“Victor started complaining of severe headache and I sent one of his
siblings to go and buy paracetamol which he took and the thing
continued. I became afraid because since I lost his father, he has
been the source of strength to me. I noticed he was very weak to go to work until he started behaving strangely and demanded that we take him to the hospital. When we got to FETHA 2, we were told that doctors were on strike so we rushed to Christ the King hospital where medication was given to him to no avail. I noticed that a particular doctor after examining him, hurriedly wrote that we should be moved immediately to FETHA and instructed that before we could get there,
doctors would have resumed work. I got more confused when we were taken straight into a new building which I did not know when it was built. It was there that they confirmed that Victor had lassa fever”
Mrs. IIbekwe who could not control her emotion as she punctuated every bit of the interview with tears said even doctors who handled her son’s case kept telling her to be strong in prayer that the chances of her son’s survival depended largely on God.
“A particular doctor kept telling me to keep on praying and he told me
that Victor was going to pass through three stages which would
determine his survival and the first stage was when he was injected
with a certain drug that got his head and all his body swollen up like an elephant. I thought I had lost him but the next stage followed another injection that almost made me mad but I thank God he also survived the stage till the last one”
When our reporter visited the lassa fever ward where Victor was being treated, he was seen already recovering as he was eating normally and was able to sand up from his bed.
Though a doctor on duty who did not want his name in print confirmed that Victor was strong, he also disclosed that he was running short of blood as his blood unit was only 20 percent and would need at least 3 units of blood.
Victor on his part commended Governor David Umahi for building the
lassa fever centre which he said was an instrument in God’s hand to save his life, adding “if we had wasted more hours, I would have been a dead man by now”.
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