Dayo Ojerinde
No fewer than 156 Nigerians have died of Lassa fever, meningitis and cholera so far in 2019, according to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control.
The agency added that since the onset of the 2019 Lassa fever outbreak, there had been 110 deaths in confirmed cases from 21 states of the federation as of March 10.
The NCDC listed the affected state as Edo, Ondo, Bauchi, Nasarawa, Ebonyi, Plateau, Taraba, FCT, Adamawa, Gombe, Kaduna, Kwara, Benue, Rivers, Kogi, Enugu, Imo, Delta, Oyo, Kebbi and Cross River.
It said a total of 15 health care workers had been infected since outbreak in seven states while one of them died.
On meningitis, the NCDC report said a total of 416 suspected cases with 17 laboratory confirmed cases and 27 deaths from 14 states of the federation had been recorded as of March 3.
The 14 states affected by the outbreak, according to the report, are Sokoto, Kebbi, Zamfara, Katsina, Kano, Jigawa, Yobe, Bauchi, Niger, Kwara, Ondo, Bayelsa, Ebonyi, and Cross River.
It added that cholera killed 19 people from seven states, with a total of 316 suspected cases and four laboratory confirmed cases as of March 3.
A Case Management Clinician on Lassa fever at the Infectious Control and Research Centre, Federal Medical Centre, Owo, Ondo State, Dr David Eseile, in an interview with our correspondent on Monday said there had been increased in the outbreak this year compared with 2018.
Eseile said the Owo centre had recorded 38 deaths and 140 positive cases between January and March, surpassing the total of cases and death in 2018.
“There are a lot of factors responsible for Lassa fever; the general hygiene of the people is poor. However, the government is trying to put some measures in place to reduce that, particularly those that live in farm settlements where the practice of spreading garri on the ground is rampant, thereby allowing rats to pass their excreta on the food.
“Another source is the human to human transfer of the virus which is increasing. In a family, we have seen cases of father, mother and children coming down with this virus. Also, the outbreak in the hospital among health workers is increasing daily. Holistically, I can say the manpower was not enough when we started the centre and we were somehow overwhelmed. But the NCDC, WHO, the Alliance for International Medical Action and other non-governmental organisations have made some contributions to equipping the centre,” Eseile said.
The Case Management Clinician, who is also a Lassa fever survivor, having contracted the disease while taking care of patients, lamented that the shortage of manpower was responsible for health workers contracting the diseases.
“We cannot rule out human error as well, but as of the time I was diagnosed there was a shortage of staff in my centre. It was like a case of one doctor taking care of 40 patients. I was diagnosed in March 2018, and I was admitted for treatment for eight days. I took my medication but was still feeling dizzy and had abdominal pain, change of colour, change of taste, weakness, joint pain for between two and three weeks before I fully recovered,” he said.
On the symptoms of Meningitis, Eseile added that people should report at the nearest facility when they start having a fever, neck stiffness, headache, and convulsion which could happen to children. “When there are heat and dust, it precipitates the spread of the disease. Early detection and admission to a hospital will go a long way in curing the disease,” he said.
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