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Lassa Fever: Rivers Health Commissioner Says No Need For Panic

The Commissioner for Health in Rivers State, Dr. Odagine Theophilus, says there is nothing to worry about regarding the reported outbreak of Lassa fever in … Continue reading Lassa Fever: Rivers Health Commissioner Says No Need For Panic


Lassa fever

Lassa feverThe Commissioner for Health in Rivers State, Dr. Odagine Theophilus, says there is nothing to worry about regarding the reported outbreak of Lassa fever in the state.

He was on the Friday edition of Sunrise Daily to discuss the outbreak of Lassa Fever and the efforts by the state government to curb its spread.

He said that the state government was “taking care” of the primary health centre where the first case was managed and had finished burying the victims according to guidelines for managing the bodies of those who died from Lassa fever and other haemorrhage diseases.

“The hospital and the morgue have been decontaminated, the family house of the patient has been decontaminated, the secondary centre where the patient had chemo-dialysis and finally passed on, we have finished the process of starting decontamination,” he said.

Speaking via the telephone from Port Harcourt, the Commissioner said that the state government was still expecting the arrival of personal protective equipment from the Federal Ministry of Health.

Dr. Theophilus emphasized the efforts being made at enlightening the public. This campaign has engaged health workers at different levels of access to the public to provide sensitization on how to prevent the spread of Lassa fever.

There had been questions as to how the disease could have spread to Rivers State considering its distance to Taraba State where the case was last reported, but Dr. Theophilus said that all efforts to link the Rivers case to Taraba was not successful.

“The family had insisted that the patient never travelled during pregnancy to Taraba State or the north. So we could not really link it to travel,” he explained, adding that the patients had died before the confirmatory test results were out.

He admitted that this was not the first case of Lassa fever in the state as two case were recorded same time in the previous year. He, however allayed fears that there might be more cases yet to be discovered.

Since the discovery of what is expected to be Lassa fever in Taraba State in December 2015, there has been apprehension among citizens on how and where the disease that broke out four years earlier resurfaced.

The state government embarked on a facility tour of the Federal Medical Centre, Jalingo to see how the hospital was handling the cases of suspected victims and just like his Rivers State counterpart, the Taraba State Health Commissioner also assured citizens that the government would do all things possible to reduce the risk.