A senior lecturer at Bayero University, Kano (BUK), Dr Ibrahim Nashabaru, has warned that the viral spread of lassa fever is capable of creating panic and heighten insecurity across the land if not quickly checked.
He expressed worry that the life-threatening pandemic also has the potential to stall economic growth, induce unnecessary tension, kill health officials and ordinary citizens as well as fuelling bioterrorism.
Nashabaru, who is a specialist in internal medicine and infectious diseases, made this known at a public lecture in BUK Thursday.
Vice chancellor, Professor Muhammad Yahuza Bello, led other top management staff, lecturers, invited guests and students to attend the lecture themed, “Public Enlightenment/Advisory on Lassa Fever”.
Nashabaru disclosed the latest report from the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) shows that about 195 cases have been confirmed, while 29 deaths have been recorded as a result of lassa fever in 11 states.
He said it is pertinent the Federal Ministry of Environment embarked on an ‘environmental health surveillance’ of premises to identify rodents’ harbourage so as to eradicate them from homes, industrial and public buildings.
While calling on the public to take adequate preventive measures against the lethal disease, the director of BUK’s Centre of Infectious Disease, Professor Isa Abubakar, emphasised the need for Nigerians to regularly wash their hands with soap under running water, urging them to also ensure that houses and environments are not only kept clean, but free from rodents.
“There is need for the development of sanitary means and facilities for drying of food cereals, legumes and tubers to ward off their invasion by rodents.”It is also essential that we use equipment such as masks, gloves, and gowns, amongst others, in health centres and when caring for the sick,” said the professor of community medicine.
