Ebola scare at Sunyani Hospital

Patients at the Sunyani Municipal Hospital on Monday ran for their lives as a 70-year-old man arrived at the hospital with blood stains in his cloth.

Mr Samuel Addo, Deputy Director at the Hospital, briefing newsmen in Sunyani said even though there were blood stains in his cloth, being one of the signs of the Ebola Viral Disease (EVD) it was rather from a different ailment and not as suspected.

He said staff of the hospital witnessed an unusual movement among the patients and family members accompanying the other patients around, as they tried to rush out from the Out Patients Department (OPD).

He said upon enquiries, he heard the shouts of “Ebolo, Ebola “making those who had not even set eyes on the man to start running, due to the education on the disease in the mass media and by health personnel.

Mr Addo said when the staff approached the man and quarantined him in a small room; investigations revealed he was bleeding from hernia.

He said the man had stayed in Sunyani throughout his life and not travelled for sometime now nor received any visitor in his house.

Mr Addo said apart from the bleeding, the man did not show any other signs of the Ebola disease, and the hospital was ready to deal with any suspected case.

He urged the public to be conscious about the signs and symptoms of the disease and report any suspicious case to the nearest health facility.

Mr Addo said two cases of cholera have been reported in the Municipality, all imported cases from Kumasi and Accra, with the patients having been treated.