Having gone through a funny ordeal myself during the time of Ebola outbreak I was trying hard to avoid similar ordeal during this Lassa fever episode. You might be wondering the ordeal I went through, I will summarize. I was deep asleep one night when my wife (then my girlfriend) woke me from sleep and was like “baby come and bathe with hot water and salt”. I tried to find out why because as a microbiology it does not make sense to me, but she replied and said that it was the recommended protection against Ebola. After much disturbance and nagging I had to just do that. My body itched me from that night till morning, if I remember that night till date I laugh aloud.
Source
Having had that experience, I was careful not to be coerced into doing something stupid again with the outbreak of Lassa fever in December 2016, I was careful of the things I ate and drank.
Sometime in August 2017 I travelled to Shendem in Plateau state with a friend for work and had to visit a restaurant where I ate pounded yam and the local soup. My friend who was with me grew up in Shendem so he new the area, he was the one who took us to the restaurant. Having finished my work there I returned to Abuja, and after a day or two I started feeling awful as I was hit down with fever, I thought it was ordinary fever until when I started vomiting and having stomach aches with difficulty in swallowing, that was when my friend told me that we ate bush rat in Shendem’s restaurant. With the spread of Lassa fever and with the news of it outbreak in Plateau all I could say was I am finished.
Source
After much persuasion I was encouraged to run a test which I summoned courage to do. Waiting for the test results at National hospital was something else. When it finally came I saw that I was negative I decided never to even walk past or smell bush meat ever again.
Words : 350