Contrary to the news of an outbreak of a strange disease in Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Teaching Hospital (UDUTH), Sokoto, the management of the hospital has debunked such blatant lies.
UDUTH in a reaction to the purported outbreak, further noted that the malicious outbreak story was said to have emanated from an unverified audio that had gone viral in cyberspace.
The head of the public affairs unit of UDUTH, Buhari Abubakar Sokoto, who debunked the story of the outbreak on behalf of the chief medical director, Prof.Anas Ahmad Sabir, said “the hospital is free of any disease outbreak or epidemic.”
Buhari said the attention of the management was drawn to an audio with unknown voice spreading information on the outbreak of a strange disease in UDUTH, adding that the voice claimed the first victim of the disease was brought from a hospital in Kaduna and died after three days of treatment in the hospital.
“The audio also claimed an additional 15 patients died of the same disease. The claimant cited Garkuwa and Alu Ya Gode FM Radio stations as his source,” he said.
The CMD continued: “For the avoidance of doubt, the management of the hospital wishes to make it categorically clear that, it has not up till this moment received any of such cases from Kaduna or anywhere in the country. The hospital is free of any outbreak of disease or epidemic. Therefore, the said claim in the audio is totally false, baseless and mischievous.
“To further set the record straight, UDUTH contacted the authorities of Garkuwa and Alu Ya Gode FM Radio stations and both of them said the purveyor of the fake disease outbreak news misquoted them as they never mentioned UDUTH in any of their reports.
“The general public should therefore note that while the hospital has nothing to hide, it also has standard protocol and capacity to manage emergencies any time it happens as it did during the COVID-19 pandemic and other outbreaks in the past. You are, therefore, advised to disregard such unverified information being spread by mischief makers whose motive was to generate tension and discomfort in the community,” he said.