The Federal Government has debunked the reported case of an outbreak of polio in Cross River State.
Acting Executive Director of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) Dr. Emmanuel Odu said the case reported in a remote community in Odukpani Local Government was clubfoot, known in medical circle as Talipes and not polio.
He said besides the four cases recorded in the Northeast last August, the country had recorded no polio.
The acting executive director, who briefed reporters in Abuja on the agency’s findings, said an examination carried out on a two-year-old boy showed no sign suggesting complications of polio.
He said the agency and its development partners deployed a technical team in the community immediately it received a report of an outbreak of polio, to carry out assessment.
Cross River State government has described as falsehood, a reported case of poliomyelitis at Ekpene Eki community in Odukpani Local Government.
“I wish to say the reported case of polio in Odukpani Local Government is not true.
“We just had our child and maternal health week and that area was covered,’’ Dr. Inyang Asibong, commissioner for Health, told reporters in Calabar.
He said epidemiologists were investigating the case, adding that a sample of the child had been taken to a laboratory in Ibadan, Oyo State capital.
Director-General Primary Healthcare Development Agency Dr. Betta Edu said the state was polio free.
She told News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) the child was born with a deformity called talipes equinovarus.
Edu said she carried out an examination on the child and found that he was born with talipes equinovarus.
She explained that a child could be born with telipes equinovarus, which is a congenital deformity of the foot and ankle.
Her words: “I want to debunk that story; there is no case of polio in Cross River.
“From the physical examination I did at Ekpene Eki, what that child has is clinical manifestation of talipes equinovarus.
“From the history given by the parents, the child was born with a congenital malformation. Polio is not a diagnosis made clinically.
“Polio is a laboratory diagnosis, so seeing a child that has a congenital malformation and saying it is a case of polio does not add up.’’
The director-general said the agency, in conjunction with the National Primary Healthcare Agency, will soon begin a survey to vaccinate more children.
“The mother of the baby said she noticed that something was wrong with the child’s leg at birth, but she thought the curving of the leg was normal.
“When the child was about three to four months, the parents noticed that one leg was different from the other.
“The mother said one leg was straight while the other was curved at the ankle.
“The child’s parents took him to a bone setter, who at a point tried to intervene, but did not correct that deformity. So they left the child,” she said.