The Chief Medical Director, CMD, of Alex Ekwueme Federal University Teaching Hospital, Abakaliki, AEFUTHA, Prof. Robinson Chukwudi Onoh has stressed the importance of a vaccine for the treatment of Lassa fever disease in Ebonyi State, Nigeria and Sub-Saharan Africa.
The CMD who recalled how the outbreak of the disease had led to the death of 17 health care workers over the years at AEFUTHA, explained that the Clinical Trial Unit, Institute of Medical Research, AEFUTHA, Ebonyi State, was established to produce vaccines, that would tackle the menace of Lassa fever outbreak and other related diseases.
The CMD stated this in his office, when he received Partners, who are collaborating with AEFUTHA, for the production of the vaccine for the treatment of Lassa fever disease and research into several critical Health-related issues.
Some of these Partners include: Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness and Innovation, CEPI, National Centre for Disease Control, NCDC, International Vaccine institute, IVI, MMARCRO, In charge of Quality Assurance in the project, EPICENTRE, the research unit for MSF) and BNITA, in charge of Laboratory.
According to him, Today, for us, is a great day. We are happy you are all here. The hospital is a massive institution. This arm used to be for the treatment of wounded soldiers. It grew to become a teaching hospital, until it metamorphosed to where it is now.
“We are a teaching hospital serving the University and the general public. We do sub-specialisation. One great thing we have done is the IVF. It wasn’t easy to do. We had the first set of triplets. This hospital is now a Centre of Excellence for IVF.
“We decided to go into sub specialisation. This hospital has lost 17 caregivers who were active. A cleaner, Assistant surgeon died. Despite all the antimalarial and antibiotics, the health workers still died. Lassa has given us a big blow in this place.
“We thought we have mastered the treatment until last year a Nurse died due to Lassa fever. We want the support of all our Partners towards providing a vaccine for the Lassa fever disease.
“I want to thank us for the structure on ground, the CTU. It is fully equipped. It has brought us to a level where we can work with any partner. Our Monocular Lab has advanced to every large extent. We will work to make sure that your aim of coming to the hospital is achieved. We will do our own part to make sure that this marriage works.”
In her remarks, the National Co-ordinator of CEPI and representative of NCDC, Elsie Illori called for more sensitization on the prevention and control of Lassa fever in the State.
“We are proud of you. I want to thank the partners for their support. Apart from the research, we want to build capacity. NCDC is the father for all infectious diseases. We need to be careful. We do not want to loose anyone. We need to do more sensitization as we go into the peak seasons.”
Other representatives of various Partners who spoke during the courtesy call appreciated AEFUTHA for playing its role geared owards the establishment of the Clinical trial Unit, Institute of Medical Research, AEFUTHA, Ebonyi State.
The Partners, together with AE-FUTHA Management and Journalists took a tour of the newly built Institute, which is over 90 percentage completed.
At the site, the CMD of AEFUTHA further expressed delight over the completion of the project even as he expressed optimism that the Institute would help to curb the menace of Lassa Fever in the State.
According to him, the purpose of the tour was to enable the Partners carry out an assessment of the impacts of the funds they had invested into the project.
In an interactive session with newsmen, the Head of Enable Lassa Research Program of CEPI, Dr. Henshaw Mandi appreciated AEFUTHA for ensuring the prompt completion of the project.
He said: “The Institute will address some key knowledge gaps for the development of Lassa fever vaccine. So, being at the Site to run this study, we have in mind that we are going to be running huge study like clinic trials.
“You can’t run such kind of study without building such infrastructure. So this infrastructure is one part of the promise and part of the steps to run clinic trials to support vaccine development. We do not have only AEFUTHA alone.
“We have such in Bauchi and other parts of west Africa. This is one of the investments of global health. CEPI is a channel through which global health is putting in resources to develop vaccines and Lassa fever is one of those diseases it intends to tackle squarely.
“I am very impressed and I think you can see from the faces of everybody that came here; not only the quality of the job but also the timeliness and readiness of the project and the eagerness of AEFUTHA to make sure that we do have the infrastructure. This is part of the process to make sure that Lassa fever stop taking away our health workers, including citizens of the State.”