Why severe fever persisted in Kano

The impact of the sever fever that recently ravaged Kano communities could have been reduced if the affected people stick to treatment and ensure completion of the doses prescribed to them by doctors. A medical doctor working with Bayero University Kano, Dr Sanusi Zakariyya, who made assertion in an interview with Kano Chronicle, opined that […]

The impact of the sever fever that recently ravaged Kano communities could have been reduced if the affected people stick to treatment and ensure completion of the doses prescribed to them by doctors.

A medical doctor working with Bayero University Kano, Dr Sanusi Zakariyya, who made assertion in an interview with Kano Chronicle, opined that persistent fever arise as a result of improper treatment of malaria. 

He said, “Many patients tend to receive treatment from those whose area of specialization was to give out prescription not to prescribe drugs. This lead to taking wrong medication which either compound the already existed illness or even cause another disease,” he lamented.

He urged medical practitioners to stick to their areas of specialization, while sick persons to stop taking drugs without doctors’ advice.

“People should avoid the habit of taking prescription from any person who is not a medical doctor. They should rather stick to doctors’ advice,” he said.

He explained that people tend to suffer much from malaria due to three reasons and the first was environment which determines how malaria reacts in the body.

“For example, people who live in Government Reserved Areas (GRA), which have good drainage system, tend to suffer severely when affected by malaria because the virus is new to their immune system which makes it difficult to fight the virus even if the body had similar malaria experience. While those living in other areas without good drainage system, are familiar with the virus because of its frequent recurrence in their immune system.

“The type of food people eat is the second reason why some people suffer a great deal from the malaria. Unlike before, when people ate natural food not processed food preserved with chemicals.  The chemicals used in preserving foods accumulate with time in our body which weakens our body immune system. This also makes it hard for the immune system to fight diseases easily, thereby making it to be persistent or take time to be cured.

“The third reason is improper treatment and or taking half dose which also makes some people to suffer a good deal of malaria. Sometimes patients only take half dose of malaria treatment, and when they feel better, they abandon the remaining prescriptions which make the virus to return to the body afresh. And new treatment has to be started, and whenever malaria treatment is taken halfway and abandoned, the virus will become stronger and new.

“Again, people tend to turn to widal test or typhoid treatmentwhenever fever persists in their bodies. It is wrong,” Dr. Zakariyya said, adding that, “most typhoid fevers are malaria not typhoid.”

He said chloroquine is still effective in treating malaria, adding that its use was discouraged among patients who don’t have full knowledge of its effects in the body.

“People are discouraged from taking it because of its bitter taste which may affect the liver. But when combined with the right drugs it is effective. Politics was also involved in preventing the use of Chloroquine,” he said.

“It’s really rare and hard to get a good malaria treatment which is better than Chloroquine or drugs belonging to its group,” he said.

Also commenting on the development, Dr Ukhasha Ibrahim, a physician at Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital (AKTH) said that most fevers are not malaria but symptoms of other diseases.

He said “most people are not suffering from malaria but since malaria is the mostly diagnosed in Nigeria, each fever is considered to be malaria.

He said frequent use of Chloroquine in the past reduces its acute effect on treating malaria, but it was an effective drug for malaria treatment.