IPNews-Monrovia, Liberia – 7 January 2018: The National Public Health Institute of Liberia- NPHIL has confirmed the outbreak of strange skin disease in five counties of Liberia.
According to reports from many patient currently admitted at health centers of the effected counties the disease appears like heat-bumps on the surface of the skin of patients and causes severe itching .
According to the NPHIL, the rare skin disease appears to be causing panic amongst many Liberians after over 600 people were diagnosed infected.
“It has been almost a month since we first diagnosed this strange skin disease and our survillence officers are working around the clock to determine the cause of the disease”. Dr. Ralph Jetoh, deputy director of the division of infectious disease and epidemiology at NPHIL, told the IPNews.
Dr. Jetoh, disclosed that due to urgency attached to determining the cause of this strange skin disease , the NPHIL has dispatched surveillance officers and other epidemiological specialist to the affected areas to begin case by case investigation.
The NPHIL recalled that just in the last month its surveillance officers recalled a total reported Cases of 631 from four counties, including Rivercess County with a reported case of 315, Margibi County, 185 cases, 16 from Bong County and 115 from Montserrado county.
Dr. Ralph Jetoh: “ Our District surveillance officers alerted us about the increasing cases of the rare skin disease in early December 2017 after it began spreading and affected more people. With these reports the NPHIL swiftly move in to begin investigating the earlier signs and symptoms of the disease but lab results proved negative. So far we’ve done a concept note; we’ve sent case investigators in the field to actually try to identify the case and also try to do mapping. There’s actually community-to-community mapping going on to actually know the burden of those retches.”
Dr. Jetoh described the disease as “contagious” and said it has the “symptoms of a viral infection,” although he could say the cause or name of the disease.
There has been no mortality, he said, but the public health concern of the situation now points to discrimination of affected people.
The disease causes uncontrollable itching on the skins of its patients, and constrains them to keep scratching the surface of their skin even in the public.
Investigation to improve preventive care based on support from the Ministry of Health is ongoing in order to manage the number of cases so far, he added.
The disease is not a public health situation, but it remains a concern because of its mode of transmission, “mainly skin to skin, clothes you are wearing or towel you share with others.”
More than 170 patients have reportedly recovered from the skin disease in Rivercess County after they were treated with skin ointments, according to the NPHIL. But there’s now shortage of required treatments to provide first response to infected patients across the country.
Misinformation is already spreading about the disease as some people describe it as ‘Ebola fanfan’. They claim it is an aftermath of the Ebola virus.
Dr. Jetoh refuted the rumor linking the skin infection to Ebola and said it is now a challenge to dispel the rumor, adding, “I don’t want to compare a rash related situation with a very violent hemorrhagic disease.”
“First to determine a crisis you must have what we call an outbreak threshold… you don’t want to say it’s an outbreak but the good thing about it is there’s no lost of life. We are very concern about the stigmatization that it brings amongst our citizens especially people of school going ages,” he said.
Health promotional messages are being prepared to inform the public about the skin disease while further investigation about the infection continuous, The Public Health Specialist concludes.
