FG appoints team of experts to visit states ravaged by Lassa fever

Michael Asuzu, a professor of Community Medicine and current president of Society of Public Health Practitioners of Nigeria, is to lead Federal Government’s four-man team of experts to visit Niger, Kano and Bauchi states, which constitute the three most affected states by Lassa fever in Nigeria.

The committee will embark on a fact-finding mission, assess the current situation, document response and experiences, identify gaps and proffer recommendations on how to prevent future occurrences, Isaac Adewole, minister of health, and Lai Mohammed, minister of information and culture, said at a joint press briefing held on Tuesday in Abuja.

However, as the outbreak spreads to 10 states of the federation, Senate has invited the health minister to appear before the Senate Committee on Health over measures taken to prevent spread of the disease.

The Senate, however, rejected a prayer calling for distribution of free rat killers to Nigerians to eradicate rats from the environment. This followed a motion sponsored by Olarenwaju Tejuosho (APC, Ogun Central) and co-sponsored by five other senators.

Another prayer calling on the Senate to commend the health minister for his proactive measures taken so far was also rejected.

Available records from the Federal Ministry of Health surveillance team show that the number of suspected cases of Lassa fever is 93; number of laboratory confirmed cases is 25 and the number of reported deaths is 41, with a case fatality rate of 44 percent.

The ministers said: “As part of our long-term response, we plan to establish an inter-ministerial committee comprising ministers of education, agriculture and natural resources, environment, information and culture as well as health to deliver a final blow on Lassa fever and other related diseases.”

In a related development, Dominic Abonyi, registrar, Environmental Health Officers Registration Council of Nigeria (EHORECON), cautioned Nigerians on the need to maintain high level of hygiene, as poor sanitation and dwindling public health had been linked to be the major cause of outbreak of major diseases in the country.

Abonyi said: “Bush burning promotes spread of rats and Lassa fever from their natural habitat to homes and houses to breed the diseases. We must avoid indiscriminate burning of bush in the country, maintain proper sanitation and ensure indiscriminate throwing of refuse dumps to avoid spread of rodents in our houses, which breed this disease.”

At resumption of plenary on Tuesday from the Christmas and New Year recess, the Senate urged the Federal Government, health agencies, non-governmental organisations to carry out holistic and aggressive sensitisation at markets, restaurants, neighbourhoods, communities, offices and schools on preventive measures.

According to the Tejuoso, the need for free rat killers for Nigerians had become imperative because the level of poverty in the country will not encourage the purchase of rat killers as more important products of survival have taken priority.

He therefore canvassed for the encouragement of corporate bodies to sponsor purchase of rodent killers to be distributed free of charge all over the country.

But this did not go down well with the senators as they rejected the prayer when Senate president, Bukola Saraki put the question to voice vote.

While condoling with families of Nigerians who lost their relations to the disease, lawmakers also paid a one-minute silence to those who have lost their lives to the ailment.

They urged Nigerians to be very conscious and adhere to rules of personal hygiene and put in more efforts to get rid of rodents/rats from their environment to prevent the spread.

On his part, Saraki charged the Ministry of Health to provide enough funding for the National Centre for Disease Control to put an end to re-occurrence of the disease.