LAGOS, Aug. 9 (Xinhua) -- Nigeria is stepping up surveillance and monitoring activities at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) where two deaths were recorded and over 100 people under surveillance for Lassa fever.
While patients were being attended to by doctors and nurses at the Accident and Emergency Unit, the hospital cleaners were also seen with masks and gloves cleaning the hospital wards and environment.
People were not allowed to enter or move close to the Isolation Center where over 100 people are still under surveillance, while the Association of Resident Doctors (ARD) also confirmed that one of their members had tested positive for Lassa fever.
The President of ARD, LUTH, Adebayo Sekunmade, said the management of the hospital was handling the situation.
The Lagos State chapter of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) has called for more public enlightenment and personal hygiene to prevent the spread of the disease.
Olubunmi Omojowolo, Chairman of NMA, who reacted to the death of two Lassa fever patients on Tuesday, said the most important thing now is education and hygiene.
"I think in Nigeria, we take the issue of Lassa fever with levity unlike the way we handled Ebola virus," he added.
"One of the problem is that Lassa fever has been with us and has been recurrent and so, people are used to it; but it is not something that we should be used to," he said.
According to him, both Ebola and Lassa fever are very close and fatal illnesses and what should be done is that people should be educated.
The doctor said the main challenge with the disease was the inability to diagnose early due to the peculiarity of the symptoms which were similar to malaria including fever.
He added that there are only few diagnostic centers for the disease and that is one of the problems of diagnosing it.
Earlier on Tuesday, the Chief Medical Director of LUTH, Chris Bode, said no fewer than 100 health workers exposed to the index cases were currently being monitored.
"Each of the two patients presented very late and died in spite of efforts to salvage them," he added.
"The first was a 39-year old pregnant lady with bleeding disorder who died after a stillbirth," he said.
Bode said a postmortem examination had been conducted before her Lassa fever status was eventually confirmed.
He also confirmed that a resident doctor from the Department of Anatomic and Molecular Pathology, who took part in the autopsy, was later confirmed with the disease.
Bode said the doctor was currently on admission and responding well to treatment at the Isolation Ward of LUTH.
He added that two other suspected cases from the state were admitted and quarantined while undergoing confirmatory laboratory tests.
Lassa fever is an acute febrile illness, with bleeding and death in severe cases, caused by the Lassa fever virus with an incubation period of 6-21 days.
The virus, a member of the virus family Arenaviridae, is zoonotic, or animal-borne. About 80 percent of human infections are without symptoms, while the remaining cases have severe multiple organ disease, where the virus affects several organs in the body, such as the liver, spleen and kidneys.
Lassa fever is a significant cause of severe illness and death. Enditem
