This is even as commissioner for health and human services, Dr Joseph Ngbea, informed that campaigns and awareness creations are currently going on to discourage residents from spreading foodstuff by the roadside and places where rodents could easily perch and defecate on them.
Ngbea told LEADERSHIP that so far, the state has lost four persons to the disease. He said, “I want to appreciate Governor Samuel Ortom for releasing N5 million as Lassa fever emergency funds which has helped in the supply of drugs at the Benue State University Teaching Hospital and Federal Medical Centre, Makurdi among other emergency needs at the isolation centres especially that of BSUTH.”
The commissioner who decried lack of dialysis machines to take care of Lassa fever patients in the state, stressed that lack of the machines was causing more deaths to patients sent from the state to Iruwa, Edo State for treatment.
“Because we do not have dialysis machines here in the state, we usually send our patients to Iruwa, especially those who have complications and most of them die on their way to the hospital because the journey is 12hrs drive and for somebody who is very sick to be subjected to that kind of added stress it will be difficult for the patient to survive,” he said