This is the season of Lassa fever, Bird flu, Meningitis—Prof. Omilabu

On Lassa fever? Lassa fever outbreak is a seasonal thing. It’s been on for over 40 years, the virus was discovered in 1959 in Lassa village in the present day Borno State and ever since, they had been occurrence of Lassa Fever outbreak during the dry season.

Although, many of these were never recorded until way back to 2002 when the diagnosis was made regularly and ever since, we’ve been having seasonal outbreak and it’s usually during the dry season. This one that is occurring now is another season of Lassa fever. We are aware, the Federal Ministry of Health (FMoH) is aware and we have structures in place. All the states Ministries of Health are also aware that this is the season of Lassa fever. Just like we are aware that this is the season for Meningitis and Bird flu. The reason they are occurring has to do with the fact that, for Lassa fever, we have the vectors here. We are among those countries in West Africa that harbour the vectors of multimammate rodents.

ibinimori