UCH expresses concern over lassa fever in Ibadan

The University College Hospital
(UCH), Ibadan has expressed
concern over rising cases of Lassa
fever in the Oyo State capital and
its environs.

The coordinator of the teaching
hospital’s Response Team for
Outbreak of Diseases and
Emergency, Olusegun Fasina,
raised the alarm in an interview
with an online media outfit,
Witness Nigeria, at the weekend.

According to him, the number of
patients diagnosed with Lassa
fever had increased steadily in the
last two months.

He said the management was
particularly worried about the
development because the ailment
belonged to the same family of
hemorrhagic fever like the
dreaded Ebola disease virus (EVD),
which had raised global concern in
recent times due to the level of
fatality it had caused, especially in
some parts of West Africa.

“Within the last two months, we
have had about 80 samples
suspected of hemorrhagic fever.
Out of the 80, we are having close
to 27 being positive. That is about
35 to 40 per cent. That is very
high,” he said, while calling for
urgent action to stem the tide.

The response team’s spokesman
said though not all the cases were
from Ibadan, most of them were
based in the ancient town.

He explained that the UCH was
able to diagnose the sufferers
because it had state-of-the-art
equipment to detect complex cases of unresolved fever in less than 24 hours, as well as well-skilled personnel to manage the situation.

His words: “When the blood samples of suspected cases are
taken, we put them in a cooler
called ‘sample boxes’ to prevent
officials taking the samples for
isolation from being infected. We
label the cooler as ‘highly infectious’. The sample is processed
and within six hours, we have the
result.

“With that procedure that we have
in UCH, and the results we have
got so far, we can say there is an
increase in cases of Lassa fever in
Ibadan, and by extension, the
state.”

Being a referral hospital, UCH, he
said, only had access to cases
referred to it as well as those of
individuals who presented
themselves after administering
series of antibiotics to battle their
fever-like ailments without
improvement in their conditions.

That, Fasina added, raised higher
levels of fear on what would be
happening in lesser cities and
villages across the state where
victims may never be diagnosed
even after they might have died.

“Judging by what we have in
Ibadan, I imagine what will be
happening to my people in Saki,
Sepeteri and other places in their
category within the state.

Hemorrhagic fever genres are
easily contracted through animals,
particularly the domestic ones.

These people are farmers. All the
bats that they say we should not
eat in Ibadan are delicacies there.

You say we should not eat bush
meat, but they are eating rat like
anything there. And that increases
the risk of being infected,” the
medical microbiologist noted.

SUN