Bloody juice: Victims recount ordeal of Kano’s strange disease

“What bothers me most is how I caused the death of Hussaini Muhammad by giving him a bottle of the flavoured drink. On that fateful Saturday our neighbour, Hussaini, came to our house and asked me for one bottle of the drink; not knowing he was taking the cause of his death. He drank it […]

“What bothers me most is how I caused the death of Hussaini Muhammad by giving him a bottle of the flavoured drink. On that fateful Saturday our neighbour, Hussaini, came to our house and asked me for one bottle of the drink; not knowing he was taking the cause of his death. He drank it in my presence and left.”

These were the words of Malama Ummi Rabi’u Warure who was among the first group of people who fell ill after drinking the juice.

A strange disease followed the consumption of the juice and was reported in 10 local government areas of Kano State.

Hussaini Muhammad was one of four people that have so far lost their lives, with as many as 300 persons being hospitalised across the state.

Malama Warure who was on admission at the Infectious Diseases Hospital in Kano told Daily Trust Saturday that she had been into juice business for a long time, and that she never experienced such and as such she never thought the juice she made that day was the cause of the outbreak of the disease.

“We thought it was from the water that was fetched from a well near Dandolo Cemetery,” she said.

Narrating how the whole thing started, Warure said she made the juice for her guests that day and it turned out that everyone that took out of it, including all the members of her house and her guests, ended up in hospital.

“On that day, I did not make the one for the business as I had some guests. All of us drank the juice. Immediately, my niece complained of abdominal pains and before we found a first aid for her, another boy started vomiting. While we were on him another girl started vomiting. Within an hour, the 17 of us were all complaining of one illness or the other, such as vomiting or diarrhoea or abdominal pains.

“In the night when we were almost collapsing, we managed ourselves to a nearby Primary Healthcare Centre (PHC) where we were treated and came back home. It was when we came back that we started experiencing our urine with blood and our eyes turned yellow.

“In the morning, we couldn’t walk again; our relatives came to our rescue and we were taken to the Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital (AKTH),” Malama Warure explained.

She added that, “At the AKTH, we were not given prompt attention as they thought we were victims of Lassa fever. It was later when it appeared that it was not Lassa, we were all admitted, but due to the expensive nature of the hospital which we couldn’t afford, we demanded transfer to a general hospital. We were later transferred to the Infectious Diseases Hospital.”

Also sharing his experience, Malam Husseni Muhammad Kofar Mazugal said, “This problem started after I took a particular flavoured drink along with some members of my family, but out of the people that took the drink only me have this experience.

“My brother too was diagnosed with the problem but not because he took any drink. He had been sick for two days and when he went to the hospital, they conducted a test on him and they told him that it was liver problem, but when he reported to another hospital, he was told that it wasn’t a liver problem.

“For me, I was admitted and placed on drip and drugs and later discharged. On getting home I started experiencing severe stomach pain, and I was vomiting and urinating with blood, because of that I had to come back to the hospital.”

He said they had been taking the particular flavoured drink for years and had never had such experience.

Another patient, Zahraddeedn Usman, said, “I took a flavoured drink after returning from football training and later that night I started having headache. I thought it was fatigue from the training and decided to take paracetamol, but to my surprise when I woke up the following morning, my body was weak and I was in severe pain. I went to the hospital and had some injections. Later, I started passing out urine with blood.”

Besides passing out urine with blood, another common symptom observed in most of the victims of the strange disease was yellowish eyes that could be likened to yellow fever.

Most of the patients complained of not getting government intervention as they were left to buy drugs and other necessary medication by themselves.

On this, Warure said, “The unfortunate thing was I didn’t have money on me as I used all my money to purchase the juice ingredients from the market. We thank our relatives, neighbours and other good people in the state who came to our rescue. If not for their support, we wouldn’t have survived. Each one of us was transfused at least 10 bags of blood and drip.”

Malama Siyama Muhammad who is still on admission alongside her two children, said apart from the trauma which she had never experienced, she was still battling to get money for treatment.

“You can see that it is one injection that the doctor asked me to bring and I have to call my brother to come and buy the injection as I have exhausted all the money on me, and these children are orphans. We are really not happy with how the government is treating us as it has left us on our own to continue buying drugs and injection for ourselves. It is really unfortunate,” she lamented.

There are reports that the strange disease is still spreading to other LGAs in the state with about 50 persons reportedly being hospitalised in Gwangwan village in Rogo LGA with similar symptoms.

When Daily Trust Saturday visited the Infectious Diseases Hospital, the doctor in charge was on round visitation of the patients.

Our correspondents observed that most of the wards were filled up and some of the patients could not secure beds.

The Commissioner for Health in the state, Dr Aminu Ibrahim Tsanyawa, had confirmed that many patients came up with symptoms of vomiting, abdominal pain and urine with blood.

The state government, through the Managing Director (MD) of the Consumer Protection Council (CPC), Dr Bafafa Babba Danagundi, directed the general populace to stop selling or buying flavoured drinks in the state, urging them to report any person that continued with the business.

Meanwhile, the Kano State Coordinator of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Pharm Shaba Mohammed, disclosed that one person suspected to be the dealer of the chemical substance used as part of the ingredients for making the flavoured drink suspected to be the cause of the disease had been arrested and was under investigation.

He said the person allegedly bought 29 bags of citric acid from a yet to be identified dealer, a chemical substance used in place of tamarind in local pap and flavoured drinks, and distributed the product around the markets.

Mohammed further said some bags of the acid were traced and retrieved from as far as Adamawa State.

The NAFDAC boss reiterated that the agency was leaving no stone unturned to ensure a total halt in the circulation of expired and uncertified drugs and food items in the state.

Meanwhile, the Association of Flavour and Baking Ingredients in Kano has dissociated itself from the flavor.

The Chairman of the association, Abubakar Isah Muhammad (Abu Bilal), said since the outbreak, its members went to the nooks and crannies of the state to trace where the said ingredient was distributed to.

He added that the ingredient which caused the outbreak was not meant for consumption as it was a chemical (which looked like a juice ingredient locally called “dan tsami”) and the marketers mistakenly took it as a flavour and sold it to people.

“Our investigation revealed that the person that sold the ingredients was not in the business; he is into chemicals related to paint and others. But one man saw the ingredient, bought it and started distributing it as dan tsami flavour,” he said.

The association, therefore, called on government not to ban the business as they had no other business to do, promising to scrutinise any substandard and expired citric acid out from the business.