By Asmau Ahmad
Health experts said that the Nigeria’s Federal, State and Local governments had put measures in place to curtail the spread of Lassa fever in the country.
The experts told newsmen in Lagos that the level of awareness about the disease was high.
An Orthopaedic Surgeon, Dr Odusote Olumuyiwa, said it is unfortunate that the country have a resurgence of Lassa fever outbreak.
“If our preparedness is at the same level with how we tackled the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) and the first time we had an outbreak of Lassa fever, we would have nipped any outbreak in the bud when it recurred.
“But, we have a problem with how to sustain what we had done before; but I am positive in this case that we will be able to curtail its spread,” he said.
Dr. Olumuyiwa said that there was the need to raise more public awareness to sustain the campaign, adding that people must be ready to fight against the spread of rodents that transmit the virus in order to curtail its spread.
In a related development, a Consultant Microbiologist, Dr. Mutiu Bamidele, lauded the Lagos State Government for putting a referral surveillance system in place based on a model it adopted for the eradication of poliomyelitis.
“At the local level, we have disease surveillance nursing officers who report any suspected case to the state epidemiologist for investigation. If there is any suspected case, the right thing is to isolate the case and inform an epidemiologist who will inspect the environment where it was detected,” he said.
Similarly, a Medical Doctor at the Lagos State Primary Healthcare Board, Dr. Adefunke Adeshina, said that Lassa fever was not seasonal, but virus-based.
“If there is an outbreak of the virus, we are up to the task to attend to anybody that is infected. We know it is something that is contagious; it is spread through inhalation and body fluids,” she said.
