Preventing Lassa Fever Spread In Communities

• Lassa fever is an acute viral haemorrhagic illness with 2-21 days incubation period. It is transmitted to humans through contact with food or household items contaminated with rat (Mastomys Natalensis) urine or faeces. Person-to-person infections also occur, particularly in hospitals lacking adequate infection prevention and control measures, and communities that are not adequately informed on prevention and control of the disease.

• Community members who spend time with someone who has Lassa fever, or who attended a funeral of someone who died of symptoms of Lassa fever are at risk of getting infected.

• 80% of infections are asymptomatic, and overall case-fatality rate is 1%, while observed case-fatality rate among patients hospitalized with severe cases of Lassa fever is 15%. The virus affects key organs of the body such as the liver, spleen and kidneys.

• Onset of symptoms is usually insidious, starting with fever, general weakness, malaise, headache, sore throat, muscle pain, chest pain, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, cough, and abdominal pain. In severe cases facial swelling, fluid in the lungs, bleeding from the mouth, nose, vagina or gastrointestinal tract and low blood pressure may follow.

• Some severe symptoms in later stages include; shock, seizures, tremor, disorientation, and coma.

• Complications in patients who survive include; deafness in 25% of patients (In half of these cases, hearing returns partially after 1–3 months), transient hair loss, and gait disturbance.

• Death commonly occurs within 14 days of onset in fatal cases. The disease is especially severe in late pregnancy, with maternal death and/or fetal loss occurring in more than 80% of cases during the third trimester.

Recommendations

1. Maintain good hygiene practices in your home and environment.
2. Wash your hands any time you return home, touch dirty and contaminated surfaces, before and after eating meals, after visiting the rest room.
3. Keep home and environment clean by clearing bushes around the home, sweeping and clearing the environment, ensuring proper garbage/household waste disposal, and cleaning drainages.
4. Keeping both cooked and uncooked food items in rodent-proof containers, and do not eat the meat of rodents.
5. Having a healthy cat in the home helps in keeping the population of rodents in check.
6. Physically prevent rodents from entering the house by blocking openings through which rodents can gain access into the house.
7. Anybody who has persistent fever should be taken to a health facility for proper management. The patient may also have vomiting, weakness, frequent stooling, and/or unusual bleeding from any part of the body.
8. Any community leader should be contacted in situations where the patient is incapable of going to the hospital. This Community leader would then arrange for transportation to the hospital, and inform the Local Government Disease Surveillance and Notification Officer (DSNO), or the State Epidemiologist as the case may be.
9. Providing the patient with his/her own space, with separate toilet; while waiting to be moved to the hospital would be ideal.
10. Direct body contact with the patient should be avoided as much as is possible. The patient should be given dedicated personal items such as cutlery.
11. If eventually diagnosis of Lassa fever is confirmed, then soiled item such as linen and cloths that were in contact with the patient must be burnt. The place where the patient was kept, prior to movement to the hospital must be decontaminated. The vehicle used in transporting the patient must also be decontaminated