By Azoma Chikwe
The management of the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) has denied and condemned a story ascribed to an unnamed “senior LUTH doctor” purported to have attributed the cause of death of 13 persons in the hospital to the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV).
Chief Medical Director, LUTH, Prof. Chris Bode, said no doctor made such a claim from the institution and added that nobody died of any “strange disease” in LUTH.
He said: “Medical literature informs us that the human papilloma virus causes a number of diseases in man and the ordinary wart is the commonest of these. The virus is also known to cause cancer of the cervix in females, genital cancer and cancer of the throat. Occasionally, it can prevent pregnancy.” Bode said the virus is found only in humans and it can be transmitted through sexual contact and infect the anus and genitals. “HPV vaccines can prevent the most common types of infection and it is now recommended to be given in young girls between the ages of 9-13 to prevent cervical cancer.
“Although warts have been documented since the time of ancient Greece, its viral nature was described over 100 years ago. It is, therefore, absurd to attribute the discovery of this old disease to any LUTH doctor and it damages the ethical standards of the Nigerian medical community when such reckless claims are made. There are well laid down peer-reviewed protocols for doctors announcing the emergence of any new disease. It is not through social media or by outlandish unsubstantiated claims from anonymous sources.”