Lassa fever na acute viral haemorrhagic fever (VHF) wey Lassa virus dey cause. The natural carrier of this virus na rats, and some other rodents.
Lassa fever dey spread through:
- Direct contact with piss (urine), shit (faces), spit (saliva) or blood of infected rats.
- Contact with things or eating food wey don touch piss (urine), shit (faeces), spit (saliva) or blood of infected rats.
- E fit transfer from person to person too, by contact with blood, piss (urine), shit (faeces), spit (saliva), vomits, and other body fluids wey the infected person get.
Signs and symptoms of Lassa fever:
The symptoms dey first be like any other kind of sickness own; like fever, headache, sore throat, general body weakness, cough, nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, muscle pains, chest pain, and; bleeding from ears, eyes, nose, mouth and other body openings when e become severe .
Lassa fever fit catch anybody from all age groups and E dey reach 3-21 days before symptoms of Lassa fever start to show face after person don dey infected.
NCDC Situation Report.
NCDC situation report for the first two weeks of January 2020 show say;
- Out of 172 suspected cases of Lassa fever for 2019, 60 of them get Lassa fever, and 16 of them die.
- For inside 2020, out of 255 suspected cases, 82 of them get Lassa fever, and 14 of them don die.
- Out of thiry-six (36) states, seven (7) states get confirmed cases of Lassa fever from 12 LGAs’.
- States wey get confirmed cases of Lassa fever, and the number of confirmed cases na; Ondo 32, Edo18, Ebonyi 5, Taraba 5, Plateau 2, Bauchi 1, Ogun 1.
This report don show say Lassa fever dey spread like mess, because the confirmed cases for 2020 don pass that of 2019, and we still dey the first month for 2020.
To reduce the risk of Lassa fever, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) say:
- Make we dey always clean our environment.
- Make we dey throway our dirty properly.
- Make we dey cover our foodstuffs wella.
- Make we no dey dry food for ground or roadside to avoid contamination.
- Make we no dey burn bush, especially close to our house because e fit pursue rat enter house.
- Make we use traps to kill rats wey dey our house, or any other method wey no go cause us harm.
- Make we dey always wash our hands with soap under running water
- Make we visit any body-matta facility wey dey close to us if we experience any of the symptoms.
- Make body-matta workers sev dey practice standard medical precautions.
- And make everybody dey vigilant, especially body-matta workers because of Lassa fever.
Any fever sev wey no respond to anti malaria treatment within 48 hours, make the patient visit NCDC office or any public body-matta facility wey dey close to am.
