Ebola: More deaths from ‘salt therapy’ than virus

He was named Stephen Obadaye, but for those around him where he worked as a security man at an elite community called Millionaires Quarters in Jos, he was simply Papa.“Papa woke me up at 4.45 am that fateful night,” Obadaye’s colleague, Saidu Rumden, recalls, referring to the dawn of Friday, August 8, when the hype […]

He was named Stephen Obadaye, but for those around him where he worked as a security man at an elite community called Millionaires Quarters in Jos, he was simply Papa.
“Papa woke me up at 4.45 am that fateful night,” Obadaye’s colleague, Saidu Rumden, recalls, referring to the dawn of Friday, August 8, when the hype about drinking and bathing with salt and water solution to stave off the Ebola virus, was widely circulated. Rumden continues: “Papa came to my room to wake me up and to insist that I should mix salt in warm water, drink some and bath with the rest. ‘You should do it because that is what everybody is doing,’ Papa insisted. I told him not to worry as I would do it, and he left.”
Rumden said Papa was so serious about the salt solution that he tried to wake up their boss and his family to be part of the salt solution train. “I told Papa to leave Oga and his family alone as they returned to Jos only hours earlier and needed rest,” Rumden recalls, explaining that this was the way he was able to stop Papa from waking their boss and his family from their sleep.
Unknown to Papa, the salt solution he took with such enthusiasm to avoid death by Ebola infection was a death sentence that would be executed only hours later.
“When everyone woke up at daybreak that Friday, I went to Papa’s room to tell him that he did not need to have bothered himself so much because the person who got nearly every Nigerian out of sleep to take salt had revealed herself as a joker,” Rumden said, adding that they left the matter at that point until about 10.30 that morning when Papa’s hour came.
Recounting the sad end to Papa’s life, Rumden said: “At 10.30 that morning, Papa came out of his room. Incidentally, I was standing outside. When he saw me, he tried to call me, but apparently, he couldn’t open his mouth, so he motioned me to come. It was like he wanted to tell me that he wasn’t feeling well and he wanted us to discuss the problem in his room. As I walked towards him, Papa made to turn and to head back to his room, but in the process of attempting that, he fell.”
Rumden said he and other people around the office got a vehicle, carried Papa and headed for the Bingham University Teaching Hospital, about 10 to 15 minutes’ drive away, but Papa died before they could reach the hospital.
He added that, Papa who was 73-years-old, was battling hypertension and ulcer. Rumden, who is a driver to one of the top executives of Moulds Nigeria Ltd, the Millionaires Quarters office and residence at which they both worked, said he knew Papa’s condition because he and the old man had both lived at the dual complex for years, he in one of the Boys Quarters and Papa in the security post at the entrance of the complex.
Papa was buried in Jos on Thursday.
A neighbour of late Papa, a woman called Mai Kunu because she sells locally made drinks at a house next to him, said Papa was told on phone that Ebola had come to Jos and he should boil water with salt, drink and bath with the solution as prevention, and to ensure that all the people around him did the same thing.
“He moved round the compound insisting that all his colleagues should fetch water, put the salt, drink and bath with it.” Mai Kunu narrated, adding that: “Unfortunately, Papa forgot that he was hypertensive. I don’t know whether it was age or whether he was overwhelmed by the Ebola scare and he went ahead to drink salted water in spite of his condition.”
Like the case of Papa, reports from states across Nigeria indicate that the salt therapy as an antidote to the Ebola virus kills faster than the actual disease itself.
It has also claimed more lives since the virus hit Nigerian soil through a Liberian health worker, Patrick Sawyer penultimate week, even as death toll from the therapy has kept climbing despite official warning that the rumoured ‘magic solution’ as an antidote, was a hoax.
 Unconfirmed statistics put the death toll in the three Northern states of Bauchi, Plateau and Benue alone at eight, with scores of people hospitalised, as against the casualty from the virus itself, which is officially put at three so far.
Minister of health Onyebuchi Chukwu was blunt in his denial of the salt therapy when he got wind of the rumour, which was initially circulating through text messages and calls as well as the social media.
“This is complete lie, total fallacy, wicked rumour,” he noted with alarm, while urging Nigerians to disregard the rumour.
But the counsel from the health minister was a little too late; the rumour had already gone viral, so had panic heightened across the country.
It had kept many up until the early hours of penultimate Friday. However, as the minister had warned, the consequence of the therapy was fatal. The “magic solution” claimed its first victims in Plateau State, where two people reportedly died from excessive intake of salt, with 20 others hospitalised.   
Few days on, the therapy Weekly Trust learnt, also claimed three victims in a Bauchi suburb and another in Misau local government area of the state, while a pregnant woman had a miscarriage in Gudun Sayawa, also a Bauchi suburb.
Weekly Trust learnt that 74-year-old Mr. Paul Bigi, drank more than two cups of salt water after a hot bath as directed by his children. “Less than an hour after taking the therapy, non-stop watery stool started and he died at about 7 am the following morning,” a family member confirmed.
In Gudun Sayawa, our reporter gathered that one Mr John Ayuba prepared the therapy taking into cognisance his large family, but he did not survive till the next day. “He sent for a bag of salt and turned the content into a drum full of water, which was already on fire preparatory for the therapy. But he died of diarrhoea and vomiting few minutes later,” a family source said.
At Bayara General Hospital near the state capital, a nurse told Weekly Trust that one person also died after drinking salted water. She said the patient became hypertensive as a result of much intake of salted water, and that he was already in bad shape before he was brought to the hospital, where he later died.
Mrs. Hannatu Kushi was lucky to have survived the therapy, but she lost her unborn child in the process. Mrs Kushi, who is receiving treatment at the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University Teaching Hospital, declined to comment on the development, when approached by the Weekly Trust.
Bauchi state government also feigned ignorance of the deaths occasioned by the intake of “magic solution” in the state. Commissioner of health, Dr Abubakar Sani Malami, said: “I was not aware if anybody died as a result of drinking salt and water, but you know anybody that drinks too much salt will definitely get ill.”
Like the three states above, two people reportedly died in a private hospital in Makurdi, the Benue State capital, few days after drinking and bathing with salt and water solution.
Proprietor of Ushakaa Hospital located behind Civil Service Commission in Makurdi, Dr. Innocent Gbillah, told our correspondent that the two deceased patients were hypertensive and had taken too much salted water.
Gbillah stated that the victims, a man and woman, were admitted into his hospital last Saturday from their different locations of North Bank and BNARDA areas of Makurdi respectively, after taking the solution and becoming very ill.
He said that his medical team did everything possible to help the victims but to no avail as one of them died on Tuesday at 7pm while the other gave up the ghost at 5am on Wednesday.
The director of public health in the ministry of health, Dr. Joseph Kumba, confirmed the deaths.
“We got the report at a meeting last Wednesday that two persons died at Ushakaa clinic as a result of drinking and bathing with hot salted water,” Kumba said.
However, at the time of this report, our correspondent was yet to establish link with the families of the deceased to narrate their experiences.
But, a hypertensive victim, Mrs. Angela Adah, who spoke to Weekly Trust by telephone from Adoka in Otukpo local government area of the state, explained that she has been placed on advanced treatment after intake of the ‘magic solution.’
Adah said that she was awoken from sleep that fateful Thursday night by repeated phone calls from some of her relations, who urged her to drink and bath with the salt solution to prevent Ebola.
“I heard about the disease for the first time. I was told to quickly comply with the directive before sunrise the next day or face the consequences,” she added.
Based on the urgency of the information, Mrs Adah said she acted without giving a second thought to her health condition and that she has to be placed on close observation, while the dosage of her regular drugs has increased since then.
Unlike the states above, there was no confirmed death as a result of the salt therapy in Lagos despite the fact that the virus was first reported in the state. With the continuous spread of EVD, which has claimed four lives, panic and fear continue to rise. However, residents seem to have handled the salt solution with cautious optimism.
Mr. Sulaymon Afolabi, a photo-journalist with a Lagos based national newspaper, said he had a bath of hot water mixed with salt but he did not drink the solution.  
Another resident, Kola Abayomi, said although he got a text message on the solution, he was waiting for a confirmation by the state government, but when that was not forthcoming, he jettisoned the idea altogether.
A visit to the Lagos State University of Teaching Hospital and the Orile-Agege General Hospital at Agege showed that there was no complication arising from the salt solution. A health worker with LASUTH told Weekly Trust in confidence that the hospital has no such cases.