Two pregnant women and two other persons have died as a result of suspected Lassa fever disease in Awe LGA of Nasarawa State.
As a precautionary measure, Awe General Hospital has been shut down, while health workers, including the medical superintendent, have been placed in isolation.
The Disease Surveillance Officer in the state, Malami Ahmad Yahuza Abdullah explained that the outbreak started when a woman was brought to a health facility with symptoms suspected to be Lassa fever and died before receiving treatment, saying that her husband later died with similar symptoms.
“Poor handling of suspected cases and lack of motorcycles for surveillance officers are major challenges.
“None of the Disease Surveillance Officers across the 13 LGAs of Nasarawa State has been provided with motorcycles by the government, which is affecting prompt response to remote areas,” Abdullahi lamented.
He explained that the state government sent an ambulance to Awe to convey six suspected cases for isolation in Lafia, saying that they were allowed to escape even before the laboratory test results were released.
The surveillance officer stated that health workers in the hospital are living in fear because they lack protective equipment to manage the outbreak, and called on the government to provide them with the necessary equipment to manage the situation effectively.
A nurse at the Awe General Hospital stated that two women were brought to the hospital almost at the same time with symptoms resembling malaria.
He said their conditions deteriorated to bleeding and hemorrhage, which led to their deaths.
When contacted, the Director of Public Health at the Nasarawa State Ministry of Health, Dr. Peter Attah, stated that only one case of Lassa fever was recorded in Awe, and that the patient had died before the laboratory results were released.
Veteran journalist and recipient of A.B.C Yola, Reporter of the Year Award (1997), Hassan Umar Shallpella, works with WAP as a Regional Correspondence. He was trained at Institute of Mass Communication and Technology Jos and Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria, Training School Lagos.He was a News desk Editor and a Correspondent at the Punch newspaper and till 2019, was the Deputy Editor ofThe Scope newspaper.
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