Lassa Fever: Need For Extra Vigilance

There is the tendency among human beings, and especially Nigerians, to pick and choose what to believe or not, when it has to do with afflictions of others in distant lands. Be it natural or man-made disasters, the traditional response to such calamities has often been, ‘God forbid’ or ‘Not in our land.’

This mindset, disturbing as it now appears, has not saved Nigerians and their environment from those calamities that they habitually wishaway, without the necessary preventive habits, needed to avoid them. For that lack of knowledge or outright indifference to health alarms, Nigeria and indeed sub-Saharan Africa have continued to record needless deaths arising from one medical challenge or another, the most frequent being Malaria, Cholera, Diabetes and HIV/AIDS, which according to medical experts should not kill anyone if the necessary preventive steps are taken.

Rivers State Commissioner for Health, Dr. Sampson Parker recently said that these medical challenges should not result in deaths if the necessary knowledge of them was properly assimilated and appropriate preventive measures were imbibed.

Speaking while announcing the fatality of Lassa Fever and its nature of frightening contagion, Dr. Parker said that the virus which causes the disease is carried by a specie of rodents called Mastomys, hitherto unknown to parts of Rivers State and its environs.

Although, originating from West Africa, the closest the disease had been was in a far away community in Borno State, called Lassa, where as far back as 1969, the virus took its first recorded casualties in two foreign nurses on a mission to the country. Even then, the response was merely, ‘God forbid.’

Today, Lassa Fever is not only confirmed to be real in the state, and indeed, the Niger Delta, a nurse practising in Rivers State has already died while six others are confirmed infected. In fact, just yesterday, the Federal Ministry of Health confirmed that 40 persons have already died across the country as a result of Lassa Fever. These are facts, not rumour.

That is indeed why, it calls for urgent attitudinal change among the citizenry, from that of disbelief to adherence to better hygienic living, vigilance and more importantly, avoidance of self-medication. Instead, everyone should report all feveral symptoms to the nearest health centre or reputable private health institution within their neighbourhood.

Happily, the Rivers State Government has adopted proactive measures aimed at not merely raising the alarm but also training and retraining medical personnel to help check the scourge with minimal danger, and also provided all needed protective medical kits required for effective tests and treatment by the health officers. This is in addition to acquiring the necessary drugs for the more than 110 primary healthcare centres, spread across the 23 local government areas of the state.

While we commend both the Rivers State Government and the Federal Ministry of Health for taking such urgent steps, like the setting up of the Quick Response Team of medical experts; provision of diagnostic kits and necessary drugs, we urge that nothing be spared in the enlightenment of the usually skeptical citizenry, particularly those who live in the rural areas and slums. They are the most vulnerable lot.

On its part, the state Environmental Sanitation Authority and other relevant agencies should step up their supervision of refuse disposal contractors for prompt evacuation of refuse while effort must be made to remove all unserviceable vehicles from our roads and streets. Apart from serving as incubation centres, such vehicles also present major security danger as they could be used by mindless terrorists to harm others.

However, all these steps would not achieve the desired results if the individuals fail to key into the re-orientation process actuated by the Lassa Fever alarm raised by the state Health Ministry.

This is why all efforts must be made to ensure that preventive deaths no longer occur   on account of negligence and indifference often displayed by the citizenry in response to such valuable wake-up calls. One key step in this direction is improved hygienic living and perhaps, extermination of all deadly rodents, since there cannot be an isolated search for the specie believed to be carrying the deadly Lassa virus.

That way, we would have proved that this wake-up call by the state Ministry of Health and government’s huge investment to curb the spread of Lassa Fever, are not wasted, and instead, prevent meaningless deaths grounded in disbelief and negligence.