By Kemo Cham
The Ministry of Health and Sanitation (MoHS) has confirmed the first case of Lassa Fever this year.
A spokesman told Politico that the victim, a seven-year old boy, died in Kono District where the family had gone to seek treatment when he fell ill in nearby Kenema.
Harold Thomas, Acting Director of the Health Education Department and Communications Lead at the Directorate of Health Security and Emergency [DHSE], said the boy came from Kangama in Kenema. He added that the ministry acted promptly to put the situation under control by subjecting all suspected contacts to surveillance.
A total of 32 people who are believed to have come in contact with the victim in Kono and Kenema have been put under “strict” surveillance, he said, pointing out that there was no need for concern as the incident was not a rare occurrence, especially in the region where this incident occurred.
Lassa Fever is a deadly hemorrhagic fever disease that is caused by a virus similar to Ebola.
Sierra Leone is one of about half a dozen countries endemic to the Lassa Fever Disease (LFD) and which are located on what is known by the World Health Organization as the Lassa Fever Belt.
“There has always been those occurrences within the Lassa Belt. Most of the cases were from the east, Kenema to be precise,” Thomas said on a telephone interview.
“Occurrences like this are not unsurprising because they happen all the time during this period. This is the pick period for Lassa Fever, around the dry season,” he added.
For the whole of 2019, Sierra Leone recorded a total of 12 cases of the disease. Thomas said that represented a significant decrease in the number of cases in previous years.
This latest incident comes about two months after the last incident in Tonkolili which claimed the life of three people, two Sierra Leonean women and a Dutch doctor who treated them.
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