Dr Ogugua Osi-Ogbu, Consultant Physician and Geriatrician, National Hospital, Abuja, has advised governments to provide quarantine facilities in public hospitals to avoid rejection of patients with suspected Lassa fever cases.
Osi-Ogbu, who also doubles as the Coordinator, Lassa fever Prevention Control in the hospital, gave the advice in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Monday.
The expert noted that the absence of quarantine facilities in public hospitals increased the risk of others getting infected by the virus. She said those not infected by the virus were at risk through direct contact with body fluid, blood, urine and vomitus of infected persons, hence the need to quarantine suspected cases. “Humans can infect other humans when we touch directly any of the body fluid of an infected person, the blood, the urine , the vomitus of an infected person, it contaminate the skin and transmits the virus. “It could also be acquired when infected rats contaminate our food, drinking water, cooking utensils with both their excreta and urine. “Also a bite from infected rats and those who eat rats as food are at high risk,’’ she said. Osi-Ogbu explained that Lassa fever was in a group of diseases called viral haemorrhagic fevers, acquired from animals with zoonotic infection, such as rats with multiple breast tissues, a very long snout, long tail and hair less which could be found in bushes.
culled from ng.dailypost