Lassa Fever Control In Edo: Need For Govt Assistance

THE Lassa Fever scourge which has killed quite a number of health workers, including nurses and doctors involved in the management and care of patients in hospital settings, berthed at Ihunmudumu, Ekpoma, when it claimed five lives in a family in 1989.

SINCE then, the rampaging scourge has caused quite a lot of sorrow in some other homes in Edo Central, Edo North and recently, Edo South, when it claimed the life of a medical personnel at UBTH.
THE Irrua Specialist Teaching Hospital (ISTH), designated as Centre of Excellence for the control and management of Lassa Fever, has over the years and within the possibilities offered by highly limited resources, been addressing this problem. Success recorded, considered against the backdrop of limited funds, can be said to be impressive.

IT is against this backdrop that The NIGERIAN OBSERVER appeals to Edo State and local governments to partner actively and positively with the ISTH in the ongoing battle against Lassa Fever in Edo State.

THERE are a number of factors which conspire to slow down successes of Lassa Fever control efforts, one of which is the inability to confirm the clinical diagnosis of the scourge, for which reason diagnosis is based mainly on high index of suspicion, and this situation is further worsened by very poor budgetary provisions for the control of the disease.

IRRUA Specialist Teaching Hospital needs a well-equipped laboratory with requisite diagnostic facilities. It is saddening to note that doctors still have to rely on high index of suspicion to determine whether or not a patient is suffering from Lassa fever.

WE recognize the fact that the hospital, being a Federal government –owned health facility, ought to be adequately funded to meet the challenges posed by the rampaging Lassa fever scourge.

HOWEVER, this is not the case as very low budgetary provisions have continued to place hurdles in the way of the control and management of the disease.

THE NIGERIAN OBSERVER is worried about this situation because the less interest governments demonstrate in assisting the hospital financially, the more it is rendered incapable of acquiring the skills and facilities needed for the Lassa Fever war.

THE consequences of the prevailing situation are grave. Many Edo sons and daughters have been dispatched to the life hereafter by the disease. Perhaps, many more are still likely to be infected. Something must be done, and urgently too, to halt this frightening spectacle .

IT is against this backdrop that we re-echo our appeal, to the Federal, state, and all the 18 local governments to assist the ISTH, financially, to equip its Lassa Fever Control Centre, which has recorded modest successes on the plank of assistance it has received from some international agencies and institutions.

THE Edo State Governor, ever willing to identify with the people and highly revered for his ability to match words with action, said it all sometime last year when the Board and Management of the Hospital paid him a courtesy visit at the government House. While promising to assist the hospital, the governor noted that the health facility was strategic, particularly to the people of Edo Central and Edo North Senatorial Districts and stressed the need for more attention to be paid to it in the area of infrastructural development. His word: “We will try to do our best to assist the hospital even though it is a Federal institution. It is rendering services to the people of Edo State and removing the burden from us.”

THE need for government assistance cannot really be over emphasized when considered against the backdrop of challenges in the control of Lassa fever.

SOME of these challenges include, dearth of research work on the infection, tragic neglect of the problem for decades with consequences of lack of progress in diagnosis, treatment and prevention.

Poll