General News of Wednesday, 13 December 2017
Source: citifmonline.com
2017-12-13
The school’s head teacher, Kipo Harrison, confirmed this on Damongo-based Pad FM.
A preliminary report by a medical team at the Damongo District Hospital, has indicated that the death of a student at Damongo Senior High School in the West Gonja District of the Northern Region, was caused by non-communicable meningitis.
The school’s head teacher, Kipo Harrison, confirmed this on Damongo-based Pad FM.
According to him, it is a recurring phenomenon especially during the harmattan season.
He however dismissed attempts to link the other 12 students on admission at the Damongo district hospital to the same disease.
Kipo Harrison said a medical team from the Tamale Teaching Hospital took the deceased’s blood sample for further laboratory test.
The said student died on Tuesday December 12, 2017, whilst 12 others were admitted at the district hospital.
Citi News sources at the Damongo District Hospital confirmed the incident, but the school authorities were initially tight-lipped on the matter.
The situation has reportedly caused fear and panic among continuing students.
This latest health scare comes on the back of the death of four students of Kumasi Academy in the Ashanti Region.
The pandemic strain of influenza type A, H1N1 2009, also known as Swine Flu, was later detected in some samples from the school.
Aside from the four deaths, several students were also been hospitalized.
Respiratory samples sent to the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research also indicated that there was an outbreak of an acute respiratory infection which the Health Ministry has since attributed as the cause of some of the deaths.
The whole student population had to be administered with antibiotics as part of a prophylaxis after which the school was fumigated
However, no definite cause of the deaths has been declared.
Another school that has had to deal with a health situation in recent days is the Koforidua Technical School, where a second-year science student who passed away over the weekend, was confirmed to have died from Meningitis.
However, health officials in both the Ashanti Region and the Eastern Regions, have insisted that they have contained the situation, and have assured the public of their commitment to ensuring the safety of the students.
The Eastern Regional Director of Health Services, Dr. Charity Sarpong, told Citi News: “I must say that currently, everything is calm in the school because we have given them the necessary support, they know what to look out for, they also have our contact numbers so that when there is something we will be immediately contacted for the necessary support.”
Swine flu outbreak at KUMACA contained – Health officials
Addressing the incident at KUMACA, the Ashanti Regional Health Director, Dr. Emmanuel Tenkorang, said: “So far so good. Since Monday, there has not been any new case and so far we have 11 students on admission. Three are on admission at the KNUST hospital. Komfo Anokye has one on admission. At Kumasi South hospital, there are five on admission, and then at Manhyia hospital, we have two on admission. There has not been any reported new case.”
