THE management of the Usmanu Danfodiyo University Teaching Hospital (UDUTH), Sokoto State, has declared that no one died of a strange illness in the hospital in the last weeks.

The UDUTH chief medical director,  a medical doctor Anas Sabir, said in a statement he issued on Saturday, July 22, that the clarification had become necessary given that a viral audio purporting a strange disease outbreak in the hospital had been making the rounds.

In the audio, an unidentified person claimed a patient brought to UDUTH from Kaduna state died of a strange disease three days after being brought there.

The fellow also claimed that about 15 other patients died of the same disease in the hospital shortly after.

Reacting to this, Sabir said, “For the avoidance of doubt, the hospital’s management wishes to make it categorically clear that it has not, up till this moment, received any such case 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.”

According to him, when UDUTH contacted the authorities of some FM radio stations, they claimed to have been misquoted and maintained that UDUTH was not, at any point, mentioned in their reports.

“The general public should, therefore, note that while the hospital has nothing to hide, it also has a standard protocol and the capacity to manage emergencies any time they happen.

“This is as it did during COVID- 19 pandemic and other outbreaks in the past.

“Therefore, the public should disregard such unverified information being spread by mischief makers whose motive was to generate tension and discomfort in the community.

“Accordingly, you should kindly assist in providing useful information that will lead to the arrest of such mischief makers who are proactive in spreading falsehood,” he said.

The CMD stated that the management was constantly communicating with relevant security agencies to bring those he called harmful elements to book.