According to Leadership Newspaper, several residents of Ode Irele, a Local Government area in Ondo State, are now fleeing the town following the rise in the death tolls from the strange ailment that hit the town on Wednesday.
The report stated that the state government confirmed that 17 persons had died from the disease on Friday, while other sources said the death toll resulting from the disease was as high as 30.
Although the government is yet to identify the cause of the ailment, other sources from the community have reportedly blamed the death on some people that defiled the shrine of the community deity known as Malokun, who incurred the wrath of the deity by stealing some artifacts from the shrine.
Kayode Akinmade, the Ondo state commissioner for information and strategy, however said the deaths are directly connected to an exhumed corpse in the community. The state commission also explained that the disease was not the same as Ebola Virus Disease (EVD), although it was able to kill its victims in less than 24 hours.
“The symptoms were not that of Ebola; it’s a 24-hour attack that would make the victim to have headache, be unconscious, then after 24 hours, the person is gone. That one cannot be Ebola,” he said.
“All the necessary facility that government should provide, government has done that. We have moved all the ambulances and everything.”
He added that although there were claims that as many as 34 people had died, only 14 people had fallen victim of the strange disease.
“Available data do not indicate that 34 people have died – only 14,” he said.
“And from what we got, the 14 had personal contacts with those people who came to exhume the corpse that led to this epidemic.”
