Nigeria’s southeastern Rivers State government has described reports of an outbreak of influenza A( H1N1) in the state as untrue on Saturday.
The Commissioner for Health, Samson Parker, told the News Agency of Nigeria in the state capital Port Harcourt on Saturday that there was no truth in the claim.
“We have no record of that. We have done investigation while there is nothing like that here. You cannot just say there is an outbreak of the flu,” he was quoted as saying.
“As far as I am concerned till now, I have not seen, I have not heard, we have own public health department doing their surveillance for it,” he said.
The commissioner said the government had alerted all primary health centers to investigate any person with flu like symptoms and report to the ministry immediately.
“We are looking out and we have not got anyone. Our public health department has been on alert investigating all flu like cases reported in our hospitals and we have not recorded any case in Rivers State,” he said.
Parker said since the outbreak of influenza A(H1N1) became public, the government had mobilized its officers to carry out surveillance and report any case of flu like symptoms.
He said the officers are still in the field carrying out investigation and that symptoms from patients in the health centers had nothing to do with influenza A(H1N1).
According to local media reports, some residents of Elelenwo community in Obio Akpor Local Government Area who live near a pig farm had raised an alarm about symptoms of influenza A(H1N1) among their women and children and called on the government to send experts to investigate.