Nigeria Army in war Against Rat

Nigeria Army in war Against Rat

After the Ebola crisis of 2014, Nigeria is now facing the spread of Lassa Fever.
Lassa Alert, a collective led by Federal Ministry of Health. The Nigeria Center for Disease Control and Partners are focusing to spreading awareness to help stop the spread of the disease. Lassa Alert has shared key information about the disease which has now been confirmed in several states around Nigeria.

Over 40 people in 10 states have been confirmed dead since this outbreak started.

Key facts
Lassa fever is an acute viral haemorrhagic illness of 1-4 weeks duration that occurs in West Africa.
The Lassa virus is transmitted to humans via contact with food or household items contaminated with rodent urine or faeces.
Person-to-person infections and laboratory transmission can also occur, particularly in hospitals lacking adequate infection prevent and control measures.
Lassa fever is known to be endemic in Benin (where it was diagnosed for the first time in November 2014), Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and parts of Nigeria, but probably exists in other West African countries as well.

The overall case-fatality rate is 1%. Observed case-fatality rate among patients hospitalized with severe cases of Lassa fever is 15%.
Early supportive care with rehydration and symptomatic treatment improves survival.

Background
Though first described in the 1950s, the virus causing Lassa disease was not identified until 1969. The virus is a single-stranded RNA virus belonging to the virus family Arenaviridae.

About 80% of people who become infected with Lassa virus have no symptoms. One in five infections result in severe disease, where the virus affects several organs such as the liver, spleen and kidneys.

Lassa fever is a zoonotic disease, meaning that humans become infected from contact with infected animals. The animal reservoir, or host, of Lassa virus is a rodent of the genus Mastomys, commonly known as the “multimammate rat.” Mastomys rats infected with Lassa virus do not become ill, but they can shed the virus in their urine and faeces.

Because the clinical course of the disease is so variable, detection of the disease in affected patients has been difficult. However, when presence of the disease is confirmed in a community, prompt isolation of affected patients, good infection protection and control practices and rigorous contact tracing can stop outbreaks.

Symptoms of Lassa fever
The incubation period of Lassa fever ranges from 6-21 days. The onset of the disease, when it is symptomatic, is usually gradual, starting with fever, general weakness, and malaise. After a few days, headache, sore throat, muscle pain, chest pain, nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, cough, and abdominal pain may follow. In severe cases facial swelling, fluid in the lung cavity, bleeding from the mouth, nose, vagina or gastrointestinal tract and low blood pressure may develop. Protein may be noted in the urine. Shock, seizures, tremor, disorientation, and coma may be seen in the later stages. Deafness occurs in 25% of patients who survive the disease. In half of these cases, hearing returns partially after 1-3 months. Transient hair loss and gait disturbance may occur during recovery. Death usually occurs within 14 days of onset in fatal cases. The disease is especially severe late in pregnancy, with maternal death and/or fetal loss occurring in greater than 80% of cases during the third trimester.

Transmission
Humans usually become infected with Lassa virus from exposure to urine or faeces of infected Mastomys rats. Lassa virus may also be spread between humans through direct contact with the blood, urine, faeces, or other bodily secretions of a person infected with Lassa fever. There is no epidemiological evidence supporting airborne spread between humans. Person-to-person transmission occurs in both community and health-care settings, where the virus may be spread by contaminated medical equipment, such as re-used needles. Sexual transmission of Lassa virus has been reported.

Lassa fever occurs in all age groups and both sexes. Persons at greatest risk are those living in rural areas where Mastomys are usually found, especially in communities with poor sanitation or crowded living conditions. Health workers are at risk if caring for Lassa fever patients in the absence of proper barrier nursing and infection control practices.

Diagnosis
Because the symptoms of Lassa fever are so varied and non-specific, clinical diagnosis is often difficult, especially early in the course of the disease. Lassa fever is difficult to distinguish from other viral haemorrhagic fevers such as Ebola virus disease; and many other diseases that cause fever, including malaria, shigellosis, typhoid fever and yellow fever.

Definitive diagnosis requires testing that is available only in specialized laboratories. Laboratory specimens may be hazardous and must be handled with extreme care. Lassa virus infections can only be diagnosed definitively in the laboratory using the following tests:

antibody enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA)
antigen detection tests
reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) assay
virus isolation by cell culture.

Treatment and vaccines
The antiviral drug ribavirin seems to be an effective treatment for Lassa fever if given early on in the course of clinical illness. There is no evidence to support the role of ribavirin as post-exposure prophylactic treatment for Lassa fever.

There is currently no vaccine that protects against Lassa fever.

Prevention and control
Prevention of Lassa fever relies on promoting good “community hygiene” to discourage rodents from entering homes. Effective measures include storing grain and other foodstuffs in rodent-proof containers, disposing of garbage far from the home, maintaining clean households and keeping cats. Because Mastomys are so abundant in endemic areas, it is not possible to completely eliminate them from the environment. Family members should always be careful to avoid contact with blood and body fluids while caring for sick persons.

In health-care settings, staff should always apply standard infection prevention and control precautions when caring for patients, regardless of their presumed diagnosis. These include basic hand hygiene, respiratory hygiene, use of personal protective equipment (to block splashes or other contact with infected materials), safe injection practices and safe burial practices.

Health workers caring for patients with suspected or confirmed Lassa fever should apply extra infection control measures to prevent contact with the patient’s blood and body fluids and contaminated surfaces or materials such as clothing and bedding. When in close contact (within 1 metre) of patients with Lassa fever, health-care workers should wear face protection (a face shield or a medical mask and goggles), a clean, non-sterile long-sleeved gown, and gloves (sterile gloves for some procedures).

Laboratory workers are also at risk. Samples taken from humans and animals for investigation of Lassa virus infection should be handled by trained staff and processed in suitably equipped laboratories.

On rare occasions, travellers from areas where Lassa fever is endemic export the disease to other countries. Although malaria, typhoid fever, and many other tropical infections are much more common, the diagnosis of Lassa fever should be considered in febrile patients returning from West Africa, especially if they have had exposures in rural areas or hospitals in countries where Lassa fever is known to be endemic. Health-care workers seeing a patient suspected to have Lassa fever should immediately contact local and national experts for advice and to arrange for laboratory testing.

WHO response
The Ministries of Health of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, WHO, the Office of United States Foreign Disaster Assistance, the United Nations, and other partners have worked together to establish the Mano River Union Lassa Fever Network. The programme supports these 3 countries in developing national prevention strategies and enhancing laboratory diagnostics for Lassa fever and other dangerous diseases. Training in laboratory diagnosis, clinical management, and environmental control is also included. In addition, a new ward dedicated to the care of patients with Lassa fever is under construction in Sierra Leone, sponsored by the European Union

Rat threatens Nigeria

January 31, 2016

No fewer than two persons have been confirmed dead at the Dalhatu Specialist Hospital in Lafia, the Nasarawa State capital, following the outbreak of Lassa fever in the state.

The state commissioner for health, Dr Daniel Iya, confirmed the incident in Lafia during a public hearing organised by the Nasarawa State House of Assembly’s committee on health.

Iya disclosed that one victim was still under surveillance while another has been discharged.

He said the state did not have an isolation unit but only isolation rooms at the DASH, adding that there was no single isolation unit for the treatment of Lassa fever across the state.

The commissioner also hinted that Governor Umaru Al-Makura had already released the sum of N5.9m to control the spread of the virus across the state, promising to build an isolation unit in the state capital to effectively isolate and treat persons affected with the virus.

He said, “We have already bought 2000 injections of Ribavirin, 1000 tablets of Rivabirin and we are tracking about 130 persons in the state.”

According to him, there are plans are by the state ministry of health to sensitise people at the grass-roots on Lassa fever from next month.

Meanwhile, a Professor of Virology and President, Nigerian Academy of Science, Prof. Oyewale Tomori, has said the country may be at risk of the mosquito-borne Zika virus infection and needs to prevent it from spreading into the country from Latin America.

Tomori, who spoke to our correspondent on the telephone on Saturday, said a mild strain of the Zika virus had been discovered in Nigeria decades ago, but it was not a deadly one as the one currently seen in Brazil and Latin America.

Tomori, who also chairs the Federal Government’s Multi-sectorial Committee on the eradication of Lassa fever, advised Nigerians to maintain good personal and environmental hygiene.

He said, “We have to prepare for anything that comes, for any eventuality. We never thought that Ebola was going to come here, so we have to be prepared for everything at all times. Presently, there is no vaccine for Zika virus.

“People should protect themselves from mosquitoes by keeping their environment clean and maintaining good personal hygiene, like in the case of Lassa fever, keep your environment clean so that rodents won’t come into your house. It is the same with mosquitoes.

“Don’t keep stagnant pools of water in the neighbourhood; keep your environment clean so as not to encourage the breeding of mosquitoes that can possibly transmit these diseases.

“There is no doubt that the mosquito that can transmit Zika is in Nigeria. We have had evidence of it before. Whether this would cause a major infection now, we don’t know. But definitely we must prepare. Nigeria may be at risk, definitely. Already the Ministry of Health had already issued an alert because they feared that it may be a problem.”

Tomori added that his committee was still in the preliminary stages of gathering data on Lassa fever outbreak in the country. “Let me put it this way, I don’t want to comment on it yet, there is still some validation going on. So, it would be premature for me to make any comment for now,” he said.

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