The National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has sent a rapid-response team to Ebonyi after an outbreak of Lassa fever among health workers in a hospital.
Four separate cases of the disease among medical staff Federal Teaching Hospital, Abakaliki (FETHA) were reported on Sunday; three of them have died.
“Health care workers in health facilities are particularly at risk of contracting the disease, especially where infection prevention and control (IPC) procedures are not strictly adhered to,” said NCDC chief executive Chikwe Ihekweazu.
“We therefore strongly advise that health care workers practice universal care precautions while handling patients at all times, not just when Lassa fever is suspected.”
The response team is to help with coordination, trace all who have come in contact with the hospital staff, manage those infected, and strengthen procedures for disease prevention and control.
It is also providing medicines and supplies to manage the cases.
Lassa fever is a viral hemorrhagic disease, caused by contact with food or household items contaminated with rodent urine or faeces.
The virus that causes Lassa—named after a Borno town where it was first discovered nearly 50 years ago—can spread between humans through direct contact with blood, urine, faeces, or other bodily secretions of a person infected.
The disease has no vaccine, but it can be prevented.
NCDC has issued guidelines for prevention, control and management of the disease.
It advises the public to keep environments clean to ‘discourge rats from entering homes”.
Food stuff should be stored in rodent-proof containers, garbage should be disposed properly and far from the home, and hand washing should be practiced frequently, it said.
