Daily Independent (Lagos)
Emma Maduabuchi
28 March 2009
(Page 2 of 2)
Lassa fever and CSM are usually considered together because of their resemblance in causes and effect. Apart from rats' urine and excreta being the major causative factor in the case of Lassa fever, the other causes are overcrowding of people in poorly ventilated residential conditions, as well as poor sanitation.
Late January this year, Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft Corporation and world's richest man donated $50 million for the fight to eradicate polio in the country. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, formed by Bill Gates and his wife, Melinda, concluded a $25 million agreement with the World Bank for the purchase of more than 100 million doses of oral polio vaccines in Nigeria.
The Nigerian elite is now wondering whether Nigerian governments are waiting for Gates or any other foreign national's gesture for the eradication of Lassa fever before they begin to combat it.
The Senate, through a motion moved by Abubakar Sodangi, on Wednesday, March 4, urged the three tiers of government to quickly find ways of combating and curtailing the spread of the disease. Sodangi stated that the serious attention given to Human Immuno Virus and Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (HIV/ AIDS) have resulted in the total neglect of other killer diseases such as Lassa fever and Meningitis.
The Senate said: "Lassa Fever is a dangerous communicable disease and official figures of those who died from it is likely to be less than the reality, as many Nigerians don't go to hospitals due to the economic crunch."
The stand of the nation's legislature appears to have roused the government from its slumber. The Minister of Health, Professor Babatunde Osotimehin reacted sharply by explaining steps to be taking by his ministry to step up treatment of the disease.
The ministry, Ostimehin said, "has been so moved that it has announced some phone numbers with which Nigerians could make enquiries for updates on Lassa fever. We have distributed ribavirin in adequate quantities to the FCT Health Department and all places where the incidences have been recorded to treat the disease effectively. We have distributed personal protective equipment to ensure protection and minimise contact," the minister said.
Saturday Enquirer gathered that emphasis has only been on treatment for Lassa fever, and not on immunisation because, according to sources, it does not have a vaccine yet like CSM. Just as Lassa fever is proving a hard nut to crack for health officials, CSM is also taking its toll on the nation's population.
While Lassa fever comes from virus infection, CSM comes through bacterial infection, which inflames the protective membranes of the brain and spinal cord. It is said to be spread through droplets of respiratory or throat secretions. The symptom of this dangerous disease includes severe headaches, vomiting, and stiff-neck and high fever.
Lassa is said to manifest same symptoms in addition to hemorrhaging, heart and kidney failures.
Apart from symptoms, the two diseases are said to be highly contagious. Ogunleye advises Nigerians to be careful and seek proper diagnosis because of the similarity in the symptoms the two diseases manifest.
Lassa and CSM have constituted a twin evil that the health authorities must find solution to. Osotimehin stated that 5, 323 cases have been reported across the nation, and that 333 deaths have occurred out of the number, across 22 states and 217 local government areas. He said that Bauchi State alone experienced 51 deaths; 40 in Kano, and 20 in Kaduna.
Just as the two diseases are considered to be highly dangerous in the absence of ready facilities and centres of confirmation across the country, there are worries across to many medical professionals. CSM is disease similar in many ways, but though it has already got a vaccine, and concerted efforts are being made by nations' agencies, together with international ones, are being made to combat it, none is seriously being done in the case of Lassa fever.
For instance, the Federal Government recently spent a whopping amount of about N237 million for CSM vaccine in the country, being purchased through the United Nations Children Emergency Fund (UNICEF). Besides this, an additional unit of 150, 000 vaccines are expected to be purchased for the nation through donation from the world children emergency fund.
It was Mohammed Ali Pate, executive director of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHDA) who revealed the FG moves.
The Federal Ministry of Health is also mounting campaigns, and advising Nigerians to desist from certain practices in order to prevent the disease.
They include:
Avoiding contacts between rats and human beings, keeping house and environment clean; covering all foods and water properly; discarding any partly eaten food by rats; cooking all food thoroughly; blocking all rats' hide-outs; stopping bush burning (It is explained that when bushes are burned, there hiding places are exposed and they take refuge in homes).
The measures also include not spreading food where rats can have access to it and reporting to nearby health centres if one realises that he has a persistent fever that is not responding to treatment.
According to findings, the scourge, which was first discovered in Nigeria in 1969 in the Northern town of Lassa, is not localised in Nigeria alone, but has been reported in some West African countries. Such countries where it had been known to be endemic in the West African countries include Guinea (Conakry), Liberia and Sierra Leone, but probably exists in other West African countries as well. However, since the rodent species that carry the virus are found throughout West Africa, the actual geographic range of the disease may extend to other countries in the region.
According to WHO, the disease, which has an incubation period of one to three weeks, has become endemic in parts of the sub region, and claimed that at least 5,000 people out of 300,000 to 500,000 die each year.
The illness is usually severe late in pregnancies, often killing the foetus and/or the mother in more than 80 per cent of cases.
*Additional report by Francis Onoiribholo, Benin.
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