JCI Takes Lassa Fever Campaign To Market Women

Market women dealing on food stuff have been urged to be careful with their wares and to always preserve them in ways such that rats would not have any access to them.
The Junior Chambers International (JCI), Port Harcourt Metro, gave the advice at the weekend when it organized Lassa Fever Awareness Campaign to market women in Mile III Market, Port Harcourt.
President of JCI, Nyeche Mac-Woke said the call has become imperative in view of the fact that a lot of people in the society depend on the market women for the purchase of their food items.
“It means that if the market women are careless and exposes the food stuff to the rats, the urine or feaces from the rats could also infect those who buy the products from them”, he stated.
Mac-Woke disclosed that the programme was part of the organisation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) campaign of the United Nations in view of JCI partnership with the UN.
The JCI President said health, being a critical part of the SDG’s requires that awareness programmes be extended to the market since most members of the society depend on them.
“We concentrated more on the food stuff area especially garri section because reports say when the rats urinate or excrete on the garri, it could pass the infection to humans”, he said.
The programme which was made up of public health lecture by two medical doctors from the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital UPTH was well attended by traders in the market.
The health experts stressed the need for good personal and community hygiene and urged those who love drinking garri to stop as it is one of the easiest ways of contracting the Lassa Fever virus.
They advised that instead of drinking the garri, hot water should be used in preparing it to kill the virus.

Chris Oluoh