Lassa Fever Patient Absconds in Nigeria's Ebonyi State

A Lassa fever patient receiving treatment in Nigeria’s southeastern state of Ebonyi on Tuesday absconded from a health facility to an unknown place, Minister of Health, Isaac Adewole told an audience in Abuja.

The patient was being quarantined in Ebonyi, one of the high-risk states affected by the latest Lassa fever outbreak which has claimed almost 50 lives across the country, the senior official said during the inauguration of a National Lassa Fever Action Committee to investigate, control and prevent further outbreaks of the disease.

Security agencies and health officials have immediately taken contact tracing steps to find the fleeing patient which now poses a serious threat to the society, the official said.

‘No Fresh Case of Lassa Fever in Lagos’

The Lagos State Government, yesterday, disclosed that there is no new case of Lassa fever recorded in the state.

 

 

It also said that the index case, a 25-year-old male undergraduate of the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Kaduna State, is presently responding to treatment in the hospital.

The state Commissioner for Health, Dr. Jide Idris while briefing newsmen at the weekend, urged residents to remain calm over the outbreak of Lassa fever, saying everything possible was being done to curtail the spread of the virus in the state.

Confirming the occurrence of the first case of Lassa fever in the state, Idris explained that the patient was reported to have fallen ill after he arrived Lagos and “was taken to Ahmadiyyah Hospital, Ojokoro on January 9, 2016 with complaint of fever, sore throats and difficulty in swallowing before he was later taken to Lagos University Teaching Hospital, LUTH, where he is currently been isolated for treatment.

Nigeria: Lassa Fever - Group Train Kaduna Journalists On Zoonosis

Kaduna — A media development organisation called Africa Media Development Foundation (AMDF) is collaborating with Nigerian Veterinary Medical Association (NVMA) to train journalists on reporting Zoonosis. Speaking during an advocacy visit to the leadership of Kaduna State Council of Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ), the Programme Officer of AMDF, Sekyen Dadik explained that such training has become necessary in view of the threat posed by diseases transmitted from animals to humans such as Lassa fever and Ebola among others.

She implored journalists to do more of investigative reporting and data journalism, which according to her seeks to bring to light the beauty of every story.

 

Source:  All Africa News

Nigeria: FCTA Increases Awareness On Lassa Fever, Bird Flu

The Health and Human Services Secretariat of the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) has stepped up Lassa fever disease surveillance activities in all area councils of the FCT. The action, according to the secretariat's acting secretary, Mrs. Odey A.I. Achu, is part of measures taken by the Secretariat and Department of Public Health at preventing the spread of Lassa fever to the territory.

She said the secretariat has notified all the FCT disease control, disease surveillance and disease notification officers in the six area councils of the urgent need to step up disease surveillance within their various localities, especially at the border communities. She explained that the health departments' head in the area councils have also been engaged on the need to step up sensitization in the communities especially in the markets, motor

Lassa Fever Claims First Death in Abuja

One person has died from Lassa Fever in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, taking deaths from the virus countrywide to 43, the health minister said on Wednesday.

The victim, the first to succumb to the virus in the capital, died in the National Hospital in central Abuja, a day after being transferred from a private medical centre in the suburb of Kubwa, Isaac Adewole said in a statement from his office.

The 33-year-old from the central city of Jos had recently married and been in Kubwa to visit family, he added.

Lassa Fever ‘kills 35’ in Nigeria

Warri, Nigeria - Nigeria’s health minister is urging Nigerians not to panic over an outbreak of Lassa fever that has killed 35 people in seven states since November.

Dr Isaac Adewole says the government has taken adequate measures to contain the outbreak, with 14 lab-confirmed cases among 76 suspected ones.

Lassa, named after a Nigerian town where the acute viral hemorrhagic fever first was identified in 1969, has the same symptoms as Ebola and also requires that health workers wear protective gear and patients be isolated. Only about 1 percent of patients die. The disease is carried by rats and mostly affects rural communities with poor sanitation or crowded living conditions. It is only found in West Africa.

A statement published Friday says Adewole “appeals to members of the public to be calm.”

 

Source: IOL News