Sunday Nwangele, commissioner for health, Ebonyi State, has confirmed that six out of the 16 patients suspected to have contacted the dreaded lassa fever in the state are having the disease.
The commissioner said this while briefing newsmen on the condition of the 11 doctors and five nurses rushed to the virology laboratory in Irrua, Edo State.
“No live was lost except for the pregnant woman and her baby through whom the health workers contacted the disease.
“The 16 patients were rushed to Irrua when they were discovered to be resistance to malaria fever treatment and six of them have been confirmed positive through a laboratory test.
“They are now undergoing intensified treatment and they are all now stable. But I want to say that it is not every case of resistance to malaria fever treatment are lassa fever cases,” he said.
According to the commissioner, the joint committee set up by the state ministry of health and Federal Teaching Hospital Abakaliki (FETHA) on lassa fever has evolved a two-way approach for the treatment of the disease.
The method includes the short- and long-term control. On the short-term approach, the suspected patient is administered with prophylaxis tablets while on the long-term control the patient that are clinically down receives inject-able drugs.
“The state government is partnering FETHA on the short-term control method, while government has in this regard donated tablets and personal protection equipment to affected patients.
“The state would not accept being an endemic state and has mapped out a land for the construction of a virology laboratory in Abakaliki,” he said.
The Ebonyi health commissioner noted that most of the lassa fever cases in the area were imported, and that the pregnant woman through whom the health workers at FETHA contacted the disease was not from Ebonyi.
“We are in contact with the demology team to determine her close contact and how she got the disease, and I want to advise the public to always keep their environment clean, avoid exposing edibles to rats, if possible exterminate all rats around them,” he said.
Regis Anukwuoji
