From Joseph Amedu, Lokoja
Following the outbreak of the dreaded Lassa fever disease in Kogi state early this year, the state government has established a treatment centre in Lokoja, the state capital to tackle the menace which had already claimed at least two lives.
Governor Yahaya Bello who disclosed this at the weekend said that the Bio-safety Laboratory for Lassa fever treatment centre is located at the Kogi State Specialist Hospital in Lokoja.
The governor also said that the centre had successfully treated and discharged three patients out of the five confirmed cases of Lassa fever from January 2019 till date.
Bello made this known at a One-Day sensitisation meeting of traditional rulers, Local Government Administrators and other key stakeholders on Flood Mitigation, at Banquet the hall, Government House, Lokoja.
The meeting was organised by Kogi State Ministry of Health in collaboration with World Health Organisation (WHO), to strengthening Lassa Fever surveillance, routine Immunization and primary health care.
Represented by his Chief of Staff, Mr Edward Onoja, Bello said that the state now treated cases of Lassa fever and had so far recorded 100 per cent success rate in case management.
Bello said that his administration had given utmost priority to delivering quality healthcare to the people, through many healthcare programmes, timely release of fund and deployment of relevant manpower to curb outbreak of diseases across the state.
The governor said that his administration had performed well in education, health, jobs creation, youth empowerment, rural and urban infrastructure development, among others.
Bello said that he had recently assented to several bills on health matters that would further strengthen the healthcare delivery system to every citizen across the state.
The state Commissioner for Health, Dr Saka Audu, said state government had made concerted efforts to mitigate lassa fever and other epidemic prone disease in the state.
Audu said that the ministry through the full support of the governor had recorded great achievement especially in the area of disease control and immunisation.
He explained that ministry had shown timely response to disease outbreaks and medical emergencies with a speed that had attracted national and international commendation.
He said they were able to partner with Nigeria Center for Disease Control to establish a Public Health Emergency Operations Center, currently operational.
He thanked the governor for putting the health as foremost on his agenda, while appreciating Health Implementation Partners including WHO, AFENET, CIHP, UNICEF, MCSP, AHF among others, for their support.
On his part, Kennedy Adejoh, the WHO state Coordinator, said that the sensitisation was to build on what they had done, so that the incidences of the flood impacts could be reduced drastically.
He noted that the status of Routine Immunization in Kogi had increase tremendously from 38.5 in 2016 to 68 per cent as at the end of first quarter of 2019,
He, however, called for improvement that Kogi has not met the 90 per cent stipulated Immunisation coverage by the WHO, saying that only five LGAs passed the recent survey on immunisation out of the 21 LGAs in the state.
Dr Austin Ojoule, the state Epidemiologist, said a total of 12 confirmed cases of Lassa fever were recorded in 2018, compared to five confirmed cases in 2019, saying three out of the five were successfully treated and discharged.
He said that one of the three treated cases was confirmed last week but the patient was successfully treated and discharged.
