The Lagos State Emergency Management Agency, (LASEMA) has commenced training of 342 healthcare personnel and nurses across the 57 Local Governments in the state on epidemiological response plan against outbreak of diseases.
The Director General of LASEMA, Mr Olufemi Oke-Osanyintolu, disclosed this at a news conference held at the agency’s headquarters in Lagos on Monday.
He said that the training would expose the nurses to clear knowledge of the series of outbreak of diseases in the world.
According to him, “we have commenced a five-day training comprising of six staff each in all the 20 Local Governments and 37 Local Government Development Areas, after which they would go back to their centres and train others”.
He said that after the training, the trainees would return to their centres and start training others in their local governments.
“We have deployed experts to train the nurses because we must build the capacity for them to have confidence and clear knowledge about what they are handling.
“We will curtail the spread of false alarm in our society. So, we are building the resilience from the grassroots and we have commenced the training.
“After training the first batch, we will continue with others.
“We intend to build a resilient epidemiological response plan that we will sustain through their data base.
”My team will be visiting all the local governments and create awareness for people to be prepared for any eventuality,“ Oke-Osanyintolu said.
He cautioned residents against raising false alarm of outbreak of Lassa fever and Coronavirus, saying the fight against the diseases is everybody’s business.
Oke-Osanyintolu said that Lassa fever was an acute viral haemorrhagic illness caused by Lassa virus, a member of the arena virus family of viruses.
He explained that humans usually became infected with Lassa virus through exposure to foods or household items contaminated with urine or faeces of infected Mastomys rats.
The LASEMA boss, quoting the World Health Organisation, said Lassa fever outbreak is a yearly occurrence during the dry season in Nigeria.
He said that these epidemic which had posed a global and local emergency health threat had fueled the preparedness plan of LASEMA.
“The Agency will make resources available for the state Ministry of Health for emergency and rescue operations.
“Heavy duty equipment and an ambulance from the agency will also be dedicated for transfer of infected persons or patients, if reported.
”The agency is also working on procuring Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for responders and the synchronisation of our emergency call centres (767/112) and transfers of command to the newly-established Emergency Operation Centre (EOC) Call Centre for immediate action.
“LASEMA Epidemic Response Committee has created a communication flow chart for effective implementation of the preparedness and response to emergency as regards the epidemic.
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