SOS: LASSA FEVER IS KILLING PEOPLE IN ADANI — SOUTH EAST VIROLOGY CENTRE TELLS ENUGU STATE GOVT.
REPORTER: AMECHI ODO
Medical Professionals in South East Virology Centre, Alex Ekwueme Federal University Teaching Hospital Abakaliki, have called on the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Enugu State Government to take urgent action towards checking intermittent outbreaks of Lassa Fever virus at Adani in Uzouwani Local Government Area of Enugu State.
They made the call following a report that substantial number of lassa fever patients that have received treatment at the Virology Centre in the last three months came from Uzouwani Local Government Area.
A medical practitioner, Dr. Enerst Agbata, said that until last year (2021), when he contracted Lassa Fever virus at his hospital located im Adani, Uzouwani Local Government Area of Enugu State, he never knew that the virus was the cause of some mysterious deaths that had occurred in the remote agrarian community for some years now.
Speaking with Radio Nigeria in Abakaliki, Dr. Agbata, explained that he had so far diagnosed fifteen patients of Lassa Fever virus in Adani and sent them to the Virology Centre in Abakaliki for treatment in the last three months.
He appealed to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Enugu State Government to establish an emergency outpost in Uzouwani Local Government Area as his hospital had been overwhelmed with Lassa Fever cases.
‘’I started working in Adani in 2013, so every year, January, February March, we use to have a lot of mortality, we don’t know what was wrong until I contracted lassa fever last year from a year and eight months old baby, who bled from different orifices, by the end of the day, we contracted lassa fever.
‘’We were three, one died, myself and one nurse survived. So this year again, we had the very first case in February and I called my staff again, lassa had come, that day we made the diagnoses of lassa.
“My doctor, who was working with me resigned because if I tell you the challenges I face by transporting the patients to Abakaliki, you wound not believe it,’’ Dr. Agbata said.
The Chief Medical Director of Alex Ekwueme Federal University Teaching Hospital Abakaliki, Dr. Emeka Onwe, described the situation as worrisome and called for the sensitization of the people of Adani and creation of emergency procedures to facilitate movement of Lassa Fever patients from the area to the Virology Centre in Abakaliki.
‘’They should make available ambulance and also health education and also sensitization of the community, including the Traditional Ruler in Adani because we also had such problem here in Ebonyi State,’’ he stated.
The Project Medical Referent, Doctors Without Borders in Ebonyi State, Dr. Luigi Sportelli, said as a leading partner in combating Lassa Fever in Ebonyi State and by extension the South East, the organisation had formally recognized Dr. Ernest Agbata for saving the lives of Lassa Fever patients in Uzouwani Local Government Area of Enugu State.
‘’It is important we continue the fight, especially in the peripheral facilities where cases can be found and recognized early enough to be sent to treatment centres.
‘’Lassa fever of course is a disease that is strong in the season, so most of the cases are there in the dry season in the first quarter of the year but there are also sporadic cases throughout the year so there is the need to keep the attention high even during the rainy season,” he warned.
Dr. Sportelli said though outbreaks of Lassa Fever occurred mainly in the dry season due to bush burning, recent developments showed that it had become an all year round health challenge and required a robust coordinated response.
EDITED BY CHUKWUBUIKE MADU
