The Head of the Department of Disease Prevention, Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, (NCDC), Dr. Tochi Okwor has expressed worry over the spread of Lassa Fever among healthcare providers in Nigerian health facilities.
She also said that the NCDC is intensifying efforts to curb the spread of Lassa Fever in healthcare facilities across Nigeria.
She said this on Wednesday while speaking with ARISE NEWS.
“Lassa fever is a very important public health issue in Nigeria, but as you have said, we are worried, not just for the rising numbers—because if you compare last year and this year, we’re actually doing better respect to number of suspected cases and confirmed cases—but we do have an increase in health worker infection. And for us, this is a matter of particular concern.”
” What we are doing is actually something we have started way before the outbreak. We do know that standard precaution must be routine; it should be standard of care in every place where healthcare is provided. So over—between 2024 and 2025—we have actually trained in every state in Nigeria, at the State Ministry of Health level. We had made sure that we have a trained IPC person who has training up to diploma level to continue to work with the state in every health facility in the state to build the capacity for infection prevention and control.
“But for this particular outbreak, immediately we started seeing the rising numbers of health workers, we have a team dedicated to IPC rapid response in a state like Benue State to go to that hotspot locations and saturate it with IPC capacity. So we continue to do that”, she assured.
Dr. Okwor revealed that investigations by the NCDC show that infections often occur because health workers are not consistently applying standard precautions due to limited training, low suspicion, or lack of protective equipment.
“One thing that is coming out clearly is our health workers are not applying standard precautions. What we have consistently preached to health workers is, regardless of the patient—whether you know the status of a patient or not—there is something we call standard precautions. Apply it at all times. Whether you’re dealing with a one-day-old baby or you’re dealing with a 100-year-old woman, standard precautions are the standard of care”, she said.
Adding, she said: “But what you find out is that for various reasons, including lack of training, very low index of suspicion, lack of availability of the things health workers need to protect themselves, these things happen”, she explained.
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