Lassa fever awareness "air clinic"

There's a sudden uproar amongst people these days about the deadly disease "lassa fever"...... It almost seems like it's a new disease...

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But guess what?
Lassa fever has been on for so many years buy I guess the awareness is more noe probably owing to the fact that we've recorded more casualties as a result of this epidemic...

Some years ago, in 2007 to be precise... My chemistry teacher in secondary came to school crying that he lost his brother over the night...

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He didn't give details but the only thing I could gather from the news flying around in school was that he died after "drinking garri" which was suspected to have been urinated on by a rat... It really didn't make sense to me then...
I sent my condolences never the less...

Now fast forward to 2016/2018... It just occurred to me that what's killed my teacher's brother back then was lassa fever...
Sad one....

Although I'm a science student, I'm not a medical doctor... So I won't bore you with unnecessary medical terms of explanations...
I'll quickly share on what lassa fever is and how it can be avoided or prevented especially in this part of the world, Africa... Nigeria where we are at high risk or getting infected with this disease which can be attached to the fact that we eat foods that are usually exposed or displayed for sale such that rats can have easy access to them e.g garri, flour...

So what is lassa fever?
Lassa fever, also known as Lassa hemorrhagic fever (LHF), is a type of viral hemorrhagic fever caused by the Lassa virus.
The disease is usually spread to people through contact with the urine or feces of an infected multimammate rat or through direct contact with an already infected individual

Common symptoms include fever, weakness, headaches, vomiting, and muscle pains. In rare cases, there may be bleeding from the mouth or gastrointestinal tract.

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How can lassa fever be prevented or controlled?
The control of the Mastomys rodent population responsible for this disease itself is generally impractical. So controlling the rats is definitely not an option.

This leave us with another strategy of enforcing cleanliness as a lifestyle both in homes and in market places.

This implies that measures would have to be put in place focusing on hygiene.
This can further be broken down into simpler terms such as keeping rodents/rats out of homes and food supplies, encouraging effective personal hygiene and creating more awareness on it's importance especially in rural areas and villages, storing grains and other foodstuffs in rodent-proof containers, and disposing of garbage far from the home to help maintain cleanliness in various homes

Now, in the case where there's a case of infection already... The things to do in order not to spread the disease especially to doctors or family members taking care of these patients are the use of gloves, masks, laboratory coats, and goggles. This is important so as to prevent contact with blood and body fluids of the infected patient...

N. B... The most effective way of preventing this epidemic disease and kicking it out completely is through thorough hygiene... It might seem like a mission impossible but with baby steps... I believe we can completely kick out lassa fever in Nigeria through hygiene and awareness on the risks involved in harboring dirts in our environments....
#let's maintain a healthy environment...

If you are yet to join air-clinic on the discord group...
SEE CLINIC LINK HERE: https://discord.gg/rqded5m