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Gabriel Dike
The Nigerian Academy of Science (NAS) has made a passionate appeal to the Federal Government to declare Lassa fever disease a public health event of national concern attaining an emergency status.
NAS acknowledged and commended the effort of the Federal Government, the Federal Ministry of Health, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), and other relevant agencies so far in tackling the Lassa fever.
The president of NAS, Prof Mosto Onuoha in a statement made available to our correspondent, urged the government to set up inter-disciplinary One-Health Committee, comprising medical and veterinary specialists, epidemiologists, social scientists, media professionals, community representatives to advise and assist the NCDC in investigating and managing Lassa fever outbreaks in the country.
NAS also appealed to the government to provide adequate funds for a sensitive disease surveillance system backed by a reliable network of diagnostic laboratories.
”Given that only about 20 percent of suspected Lassa fever cases are usually confirmed, there is the need to improve the capability and enhance the capacity of the national laboratory network for reliable and efficient definitive diagnosis of suspected cases.”
According to the academy, there is a need for the federal and state governments to mount an extensive and sustained public Lassa fever prevention and control awareness programme.
”Each state should establish a functional isolation ward for the treatment of Lassa fever patients. It is important to set up a mechanism for improving environmental sanitation in a sustained manner throughout the country to reduce rodent population and rodent-human contact,” NAS stressed.
Funds should be provided for research into finding new drugs for Lassa fever treatment and the development of a Lassa fever vaccine, ” NAS stressed.
Prof Onuoha said NAS observed that over the past 50 years, Lassa fever has become a disease occurring in perennial outbreaks, in nearly all the states of Nigeria, with increasing numbers of suspected cases, dry season peaks, and unacceptably high case fatality rates.
He explained that while a drug exists for the treatment of the disease, the inefficient laboratory diagnosis and late hospital admission of patients, add up to making the drug less effective in treating Lassa fever patients.
The NAS president added that the spread of the disease throughout the country might have resulted from increasing human-rodent contact in an explosive population of rodents generated by pervasive poor environmental sanitation.
His words: “Nigeria must take positive and sustained action necessary to prevent and control Lassa fever now, and not wait until more fatalities are recorded as a result of the yearly occurrence.”
NAS says over the last 50-year period of reporting the disease in the country, 16,783 suspected Lassa fever cases, 11,195 (67 percent) were reported between 2016 and January 29, 2020, while 632 (60 percent) of 1,047 Lassa fever deaths were reported during the same period.
Onuoha explained that in 2016, 921 suspected cases were reported while the figures for 2017 and 2018 were 1,030 and 3498 suspected cases. He said an alarm was raised over the tripling of the number of suspected cases between 2017 and 2018, only for the reported number of suspected cases to rise in 2019 to 5,057 which was 145 percent of the reported 2018 figures.
