Lassa fever kills nurse, ex-corps member in Ogun

·       No cause for alarm – Govt

A viral disease, Lassa Hemorrhagic Fever, has claimed the lives of two, assistant chief nursing officer, identified as Abolanle Adesuyi and ex-corps member, Great Okusaga, at the Federal Medical Centre, (FMC), Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital.

Tribune Online gathered that Adesuyi had contacted the disease having attended to the corps member, said to be a son of the man managing the morgue of the hospital.

This development came to fore, barely four months after the state government had declared the state free of the deadly disease.

It was learnt that the hospital management worried by the successive deaths, commissioned a test at the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan.

The result of the test according to the Public Relations Officer of the hospital, Mr Segun Orisajo, confirmed the death of the nurse.

Officers of the state ministry of health have embarked on a contact tracing exercise to ascertain the number of people that could have also contacted the disease.

“They are also doing decontamination of thematic areas, but the management of FMC has assured members of the public not to exercise fear because it can only be contacted only through fluid.

“Officials of the state Ministry of Health led by the commissioner, Dr Babatunde Ipaye, were at the hospital to render their support and complaints.

Two members of staff of the hospital, a doctor and a nurse, had been placed under intensive care at the hospital, for treatment.

However, there was confusion within the premises of the hospital, when Tribune Online visited on Tuesday afternoon, as nurses and some medical staff, abandoned their duty posts, as a result of the development.

But the state government through the Commissioner for Health, Dr Babatunde Ipaye, had allayed fear over the incident.

Ipaye, who paid an on the spot assessment to the hospital, said there was no cause for alarm, saying panic over an outbreak of Lassa fever in the State was presumptuous and unnecessary.

He added that disease could be transmitted where there was contact with the body fluid of a victim assuring that all those that may have had contacts with the victim have been placed under surveillance.

Ipaye affirmed that the state government had always been proactive on issues relating to public health, saying that Ogun State had never recorded any case of Lassa Fever except for the two cases imported to the state from Ebonyi and Kogi states few months ago.

He said the state Ministry of Health in collaboration with FMC would quickly set up an isolation centre at the hospital to attend to any emergency, while urging the nurses to always attend to all patients in the most hygienic and clinical manner.

“We are going to immediately create an isolation centre here at FMC to cater for unexpected cases and emergency on public health issues like Lassa Fever to include other communicable diseases. I have sent medical officers out to confirm the root of the case,” he said