Health workers at the Lagos State
University Teaching Hospital, Ikeja, took to their heels when a patient
who was suspected to have been down with Lassa fever was brought to the
Medical Emergency Unit of the hospital on Wednesday.
According to an attendant at the unit,
the middle aged security officer was rushed to the hospital by his
colleagues on Wednesday morning after he began bleeding through the
nose. It was gathered that one of the nurses
at the unit with the doctor on duty eventually came to the patient’s aid
and later directed that a series of tests be conducted on him before he
was admitted into the ward.
A medic at the unit said that they were
taking precautions to ensure that they were wearing protective garment
before attending to sick patients to prevent any cross-infection should
it be Lassa fever. The doctor and a senior nurse at the
unit also advised the attendants not to panic when patients with
symptoms of fever were brought to the hospital.
She said, “These bleeding could have been as a result of tuberculosis as he complained that he had been coughing a lot lately.”
However, the Minister of Health, Prof.
Isaac Adewole, in a telephone conversation with one of our
correspondents on Wednesday, said that any health worker or doctor found
to have rejected sick patients over unfound claims would be sanctioned.
Adewole said that such a reaction from
health workers who should know better might frustrate ongoing efforts to
detect and treat suspected cases of Lassa fever. He insisted that sick patients or those
with symptoms of Lassa fever should be taken to LASUTH, as doctors and
nurses at the tertiary institution had been trained on how to quickly
attend to such infectious diseases.
Adewole said,“ It is an unprofessional
behaviour and if we investigate this, we would sanction such health
workers. If there is a suspected case of fever, please go to LASUTH, it
is a tertiary hospital and they have adequate health professionals to
handle many cases. No one should turn a patient away on the basis of a
fever.”
The minister said that a man died of Lassa fever at the National Hospital, Abuja on Wednesday.
Adewole said that the patient who came from Plateau State died shortly after he was admitted to the hospital. He said, “The man came in from Plateau
State because he was ill. The healthcare team at the private hospital
failed to suspect Lassa fever.”
The minister, however, had directed that all those who had contact with the deceased should be traced.
Adewole noted that no case of Lassa
fever had been confirmed in Sokoto and Gombe states; hence the reason
the Federal Government would be delisting them from the list of affected
states while it would add Ondo State.
He said,“We are removing Gombe and
Sokoto states because none of the cases were confirmed but we are adding
Ondo State. So, we still have 10 states that have been affected.”
Adewole, who had visited Minna, the
Niger State capital, one of the affected states earlier in the day, said
that the outbreak had been brought under control. The minister, who also visited one of
the affected communities during the Lassa fever surveillance and
nationwide fact-finding visit, told the state Governor, Abubakar Bello,
that despite the high rate of fatality in the last few months, efforts
by all stakeholders in the country had brought the scourge under
control.
“A nationwide alert system is on to
track the disease. Except for the case in Plateau, no person-to-person
or hospital-acquired infection has been recorded. So far, things are
under control but the state and local governments should put an alert
system in place to enable us to track new cases whenever they happen,”
Adewole noted.
He added that the Federal Ministry of Health must be notified of any strange death.
The minister blamed the current Lassa
fever outbreak on the failure of notification system in the country. He
cited the case of Niger State where it took months after the outbreak
before his ministry was notified. The Niger State governor, who was
represented by his deputy, Alhaji Ahmed Ketso, called for the inclusion
of traditional healers in disease control programmes, saying they were
the first healthcare givers that rural dwellers consult.
Meanwhile, a male patient who was
receiving treatment for Lassa fever at the isolation ward of the Irrua
Specialist Teaching Hospital, in Esan West Local Government Area of Edo
State, was said to be in a critical condition on Wednesday. A medical personnel at the hospital expressed fears that he had a low chance of survival, having reported late for treatment.
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