By Mustapha Yauri
Abuja – Prof. Oyewale Tomori, Chairman, National Lassa fever Control Committee, has appealed to the Federal Government to declare October as a month to mark Lassa fever in Nigeria.
Tomori made the call in an interview with News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Tuesday in Abuja.
He said the month should be dedicated to enhance sensitisation programme with a view to eradicating the disease in Nigeria.
He decried the recurrence of Lassa fever in Nigeria, describing it as a national disgrace because it is a disease known and we can do something about it.
He said the disease can be averted by enhancing good hygiene, limiting contact with the rodents and reducing the number of rodents in the environment.
Tomori said the committee has issued recommendations on best ways to address Lassa fever in Nigeria.
“I am not the first to submit recommendations; other people have been submitting recommendations, just that we don’t do anything about it, which is our problem.
“The recommendation we made last year were similarly made 35 years ago, and nothing has happened.
“The problem is not the recommendations, but implementing the recommendations,’’ he said.
According to him, some of the recommendations include provision of protecting gears for the medical personnel, sensitisation and awareness campaigns, quick reporting of cases and improve laboratory services to enhance quick diagnosis.
“We have been saying this since the first incidence of Lassa fever in 1969; 49 years thereafter we are saying it again,
“lamenting the problem is not the recommendation but its implementation,’’ the chairman said.
Tomori said since the first incidence of Lassa fever in 1969, many people died from the disease.
He added that the only time Nigeria raises serious concern over the disease was when a medical doctor or a health worker died from the disease.
Tomori noted that medical workers became exposed to the disease because they did not adhere to medical precautions such as using the gloves and masks.
He therefore appealed to stakeholders to enhance awareness and sensitisation of health workers and the society at large as a means to stamp out the disease in the country.
He said it was a wrong approach to tell society not to eat bush meat or shake peoples’ hands as a means of protection from the disease.
He explained that when the bush meat was cooked properly, it will not harm or cause the disease.
He urged the stakeholders to target the hunters that set traps for the rodents in the bush and women who cook the bush meet for better enlightenment on the disease. (NAN)