Written by Adebayo WaheedTuesday, 10 April 2012
A medical expert from the University College Hospital (UCH), Mrs Catherine Ayegboyin, has disclosed that out of between 100,000 to 300,000 Nigerians being infected with Lassa fever virus on yearly basis, 5,000 die annually.
Ayegboyin, a trained nurse, made the disclosure on Monday, at the Aperin Baptist Church, Ibadan, where she delivered a lecture on the awareness and dangers inherent in contacting the deadly viral disease.
Noting that the disease was discovered in 1969 in a village called Lassa in the northern part of Nigeria, where it killed two nurse-missioners, Ayegboyin said the disease had become rampant in countries like Sierra Leone, Guinea, Liberia and Nigeria, adding that its causative agent was mainly rodents.
According to her, Lassa fever was contagious as, apart from being spread through urine and feaces of rodents dropped on foods, it also spread through inhaling of the viral disease.
She said some doctors and nurses were, early this year in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, killed by the fever, through contact with the infected patients.
While enjoining Nigerians to imbibe the habit of personal and environmental hygiene by preventing rodents from inhabiting their houses and having contact with their foods, Ayegboyin said some of the symptoms of Lassa fever included high temperature, chest pain, conjunctivitis, swelling of the face, diarrhoea, traces of blood coming through the nose and ear, among others.
SOURCE: Nigerian Tribune, 10 April 2012. http://tribune.com.ng/index.php
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