Lassa fever and Zika anxiety spreads; still, there are many health lessons to learn from Africa NIGERIA is battling to contain Lassa fever; since an outbreak began in November 2015, more than 100 people have died. Globally, the world is nervous about the mosquito-borne Zika virus that is spreading rapidly in South America, and is linked with increasing cases of microcephaly in children.
It’s part of a growing trend: emerging infectious diseases like
these are becoming more and more of a global concern, and in Africa’s case - as
the 2014-2015 Ebola crisis showed us - the continent is particularly
vulnerable, due to poor health infrastructure in many cases. But it’s not all doom and gloom; there are lessons to be learned
from health emergencies like these, and smart governments never let a good
crisis go to waste.
The Ebola outbreak
offered many profound – but painful – lessons. The first is that countries with
weak health systems and few basic public health infrastructures in place cannot
withstand sudden shocks, whether these come from a changing climate
or a runaway virus.
As the virus spread, health systems in Guinea, Liberia and
Sierra Leone collapsed. People stopped receiving – or stopped seeking – health
care for other diseases, like malaria, that cause more annual deaths than
Ebola. Maternal mortality soared, and even a simple fall or accident could have
deadly consequences.
But countries like Nigeria, Mali and Senegal, which had good
surveillance and laboratory support in place and took swift action were able to
defeat the virus before it gained a foothold. They were able to diagnose the
disease quickly, trace all the people who had contacts with an Ebola patient,
and impose quarantines. That stopped the virus in its tracks.
These are lessons
that are coming in handy as Benin also works to put Lassa fever under control.
The Benin authorities have taken emergency measures in response to the outbreak, including
setting up quarantine units in affected areas to isolate and treat victims;
establishing a contact tracing system to find those who might have been exposed
to the disease; and making sure the drug Ribavirin, known to be effective
against the disease, is widely available.
As of 10 Feb 2016, there had been 52 suspected cases of Lassa
fever in Benin, and 17 people have died – two of them health workers.The second big lesson of Ebola was that community engagement is
the one factor that underlies the success of all other control measures. “It is the linchpin for successful control. Contact tracing,
early reporting of symptoms, adherence to recommended protective measures, and
safe burials are critically dependent on a cooperative community,” a recent
status report from WHO stated.
Control efforts in
all three countries were disrupted by community resistance, fuelled by fear and
misperceptions about an unfamiliar disease. The control measures imposed were frightening
and disruptive – such
as disinfecting houses, setting up barriers and fever checks, and the invasion
by foreigners dressed in what looked like spacesuits, who took people to
hospitals or barricaded them in tent-like wards, from which few returned.
But getting community buy-in, through extensive public health
information campaigns, has had much success in Africa’s fight against HIV/AIDS.
When the disease first emerged in the 1980s, so high was the fear and stigma
that in many places, a diagnosis meant quick ostracisation from the community
or even the family home, and one would be left alone to die.
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