In the past 10 days, an unidentified disease has claimed the lives of at least 14 people in a small community in the Nigerian state of Ondo. The illness is being described as “worse than Ebola” and causes blindness and loss of consciousness in patients before they eventually succumb to their ailment.
Ondo State Health Commissioner Dayo Adeyanju said that so far the only confirmed fact about the new illness “is that it is not Ebola; but it attacks the central nervous system of the victims.” It is unknown whether the disease is infectious or has bacterial or viral roots, reports Outbreak News Today.
Currently, samples from the victims have been sent to a lab in the city of Lagos to help better understand the still unclear nature of the illness, Adeyanju said. The World Health Organization (WHO) has been contacted to help identify the disease.
