Contrary to the assumption that Lassa Fever is a seasonal disease, The Chairman, Lassa Fever Control Committee in Nigeria, Prof. Oyewale Tomori, says no fewer than three people are diagnosed of the disease daily, with the recent outbreak already claiming up to 40 lives. According to him, poor disease surveillance system has caused the escalation and persistent reoccurrence of Lassa fever outbreak in Nigeria.
Speaking at a symposium on Lassa fever organized by the Nigerian Institute of Medical Research, NIMR, Yaba, Lagos, Prof. Tomori said that Lassa fever has been claiming lives over the past 47 years without concrete strategies to bring it under control. “If you are not hearing of new cases, it is not that the disease is not occurring, but because our disease surveillance is not up to par.
We deceive ourselves that it’s a seasonal disease, but the fact remains that it occurs throughout the year”, he stressed. Prof. Tomori, who is also The President of the Nigeria Academic of Science (NAS), said the nation failed years back, to see the disease as a national emergency on time, and did not put measures on ground to prevent future reoccurrence.
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“We have little value for life, until more than 100 people die of a disease, it is not an emergency, For many years, Lassa fever has been with us but we don’t take it serious. In other parts of the world, when a single person dies of a disease, it is a national emergency. For how long are we going to continue to call a tragedy an embarrassment? “We have abandoned disease surveillance and control activities; there was a time people worked together, the laboratories at Ibadan, the Ministry of Health, NIMR, joined forces to protect the country. In the 60’s to 80’s at Ibadan, we produced every reagent we needed in the country. We did not depend on importation. But now we are lazy and everybody wants to make money from importation”, he said. He said six to seven laboratories in the country cannot give proper results and this is due to lack of government support.
The only few that function in the country do so with support from donor agencies and backing from abroad. On the effort of the committee, he disclosed that a vaccine trial for Lassa fever will soon commence. In his address, the Director General, NIMR, Prof. Innocent Ujah, said the national response to the 47-year-old epidemic in Nigeria has remained largely poor and there appears to be no strategic plan to allocate fund for Lassa and other viral Haemorrhagic fevers research, surveillance and appropriation response. Ujah mentioned lack of manpower and well equipped laboratories as part of challenges hindering the institution from recording success.
By: Franka Osakwe
National Mirror News
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