LASSA FEVER

Lassa fever is an acute viral hemorrhagic fever; just as Ebola, yellow fever and dengue are VHFs
Lassa fever was discovered in Lassa, Nigeria in 1969.
Lassa fever virus is a zoonotic illness, endemic in West Africa (Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea).
Lassa fever virus resides naturally in the multimammate rat (Mastomys natalensis), but other species have to been known to host it. Mastomys rats are common in poor sanitary areas

Lassa fever epidemic occurs throughout the year, with peaks between November and May.

Lassa moves from rats to humans, when the latter is exposed to urine, saliva, blood or feces of the former. Transmission between humans occurs via contact with similar body fluids (or objects and surfaces contaminated with said fluids) and vomitus.

Lassa fever incubates inside an infected person for 3 – 21 days before symptoms appear.

80% of infections go unnoticed, as symptoms are mild and fleeting (fever, malaise, weakness, and headache)

20% of infections progress to muscle pain, sore throat, cough and chest pain, nausea and vomiting, abdominal pain and diarrhea, with severe cases progressing to hemorrhaging from gums, eyes or nose amongst other places with complications such as shock, hypotension.... DEATH usually follows within 2 weeks of symptoms, due to multi-organ failure.

General case mortality is less than 1%, while in-hospital case mortality is 15 – 20% (do not wonder why).

Neurological symptoms have also been described, including tremors, deafness and encephalitis.

Diagnosis is by ELISA to IgM, IgG antibodies and Lassa antigen, Reverse transcriptase PCR (in early stages); viral culture (takes 7 – 10 days)

Treatment – Ribavirin, when given early and supportive care concerning fluid and electrolyte balance, as well as treatment of supervening infections, if any.

PREVENTION and CONTROL

Community education on hygiene (prevent rodents being exposed to foodstuff), avoidance of contact with body fluids of sick people. Invaluable, also, is basic hand hygiene.

For health workers,

Practice standard precautions at all times (hand hygiene, correctly use PPE irrespective of provisional diagnosis)

Appropriately dispose and disinfect items used by Lassa fever patients

Clean hospital regularly using appropriate materials and methods.

Dispose all healthcare waste safely

Maintain a high index of suspicion for Lassa fever

Test all suspected malaria cases with RDT, if negative CONSIDER OTHER CAUSES OF FEVER INCLUDING LASSA FEVER

National guidelines for case management of Lassa fever is here http://ncdc.gov.ng/diseases/guidelines

Images from Google images

The Season

And then another day passes as the world celebrates.
The world celebrates something it doesn't understand, or for clarity doesn't want to understand.
Boxes are packed, boxes are exchanged and boxes are opened,  causing smiles on the face of the participating millions.
Every place is agog with parties, revelry even. Friends and foes all alike celebrate the holiday. It's the holiday season, remember?

It happens this way every year.
The same cycle from beginning to end.
Stress and stressors ever present all year round. People running the race of rats every day. Sometimes not minding whose bull is gored or whose wheat is trampled. But when the dates come the fever precedes.
The fever sends people into the craze, the rave, for the sake of sanity. They work hard for what they can give the neighbor or neighbors.
And the neighbors work hard for what they can give to their neighbors.
The fission chain is formed, the frenzy and the fever that sometimes send chills down the spine of the neutral nonparticipants.
Is it all about that one day? Or is it about the season?
Are people supposed to live the year over for just a couple of days to live?
More concerning, are people supposed to be 'really' generous on just a couple of days in the majorly 365 days of the year?
It beats me

And It Returns

And it returns
That feeling that is known all too well
That feeling in the stomach’s pit
The beginning of the end?
Or just the end of the beginning?
Nostalgia still raves
Home sweet home, well, gone for now
School, school and it stress waves
Hope that after all, no frowns

And it returns
Standing on the threshold
Beholding with the mind’s eye the “glory” afterwards
But still discomfit with fear of the stones
The thorns in the rose garden
Plans are being made
Ideas are conceived
Fruition albeit it promise
Failure will only be grave

And it returns
The faces on the face of those who arrive earlier
Show no overt keenness
They may be masters of cloak and dagger
Or is it a shared despondence?
Everyone stumbling around in an orderly disorder
An ensemble, a prearranged chaos
Awaiting for the word “go”
To scurry along to the last note



And we return
Bid farewell to yesterday
For it is gone forever
Bid welcome to tomorrow
Hope you are here when it gets here
But as long as today is
The fight must go on
Until we return
To the places wherefrom we have come
Chinazo Peter

The Mind of The Weirdo

 My body is a temple, but my mind is a machine. My mind is a machine whose workings are just being figured out by the world around me and much to my dismay, me.

 Every human is said to see, not with their eyes, but with their brain as the eyes are just a window to the mind or the soul whichever school of thought you enrolled in.

 Every human is also said to have the “eyes” of the mind. The eyes of the mind or Mind’s Eye as defined by the Merriam Webster Dictionary is the “the mental faculty of conceiving imaginary or recollected scenes”. This gives the mind an ability, thus making it an “organ”. The mind can see things that may or may not have been there. Nice, right?

 Now to the present reality. My mind is a machine, whose workings are just being figured out by me, and influenced by the slightest and inconsequential of alterations, but seems to be away from the reach of the realm of the minds of others.

 The visual range of the human eye is limited to the visual band of the electromagnetic spectrum. Some other animals have a visual range that extends into the Infrared and/or the Ultraviolet bands. From a human visual perspective, this is paranormal at best and abnormal at worst. But from a scientific point of view, this ability has been proven to be simply due to the presence of an additional type of cone cells in their retina to the three types that humans have. This makes the “paranormal” and “abnormal”, a wrong assumption in the minds of the untrained.

 Is my mind like that of the birds? Do I “see” things differently from majority of those around me because of an additional type of cone cell in the eyes of my mind? Or is it the opposite? Am I presumptuous to assume it is an upgrade rather than a handicap? Put simply, isn’t it a case of something missing, rather than something added? The questions have plagued my mind ever since I realized its existence, and I hope to find answers to them before my time here runs out.

 My mind is a machine, a machine whose workings are just being figured out by me. With every passing day, I fathom another small part of this virtual yet real, byzantine machine. I plan to perfect it over time.

So, why have I written this? Just to request this of you. Please, bear with me. Whenever I seem to take a stance that seems off normalcy, just try to understand. I’m getting there. It may take a while. When I do that random weird thing, don’t criticize overly. My mind is a machine and I’m trying to figure it out.

The reality of Realism

  Reality is waiting to show its true colors, a wise person once told me. The reality of what precisely? In fact, what is the reality?

  Reality is what you define it as, but a shared reality is a true reality. A singular reality is a dream or worse, a fantasy. The mind is a whole new world of infinite possibilities and impossibilities.

  Also there is the alternate reality, independent of the ambient reality. In this reality infinite possibilities present themselves. Just a diminutive alteration in any singular occurrence in the time space continuum propels reality into another certainty. This, though is propounded only by science fiction.

  But still, what is reality? Humans go to great extents to understand the nature of man, what makes him living. Is man alive because he thinks? Or, does man think because he is alive? This may be a bunch of crap but the reality is that we do not understand the basic thing about our physical existence.

  What is real? You? Do you think that because I interact with you, then you are real? Is Siri real, taking away the fact that Susan Bennett is the human voice behind it? That interactive program on electronic devices that can keep up at least a simple conversation for some time. Most humans do not agree that Siri is real, basically because "she" cannot be seen and touched. Not an entirely bad basis and for good reason. Real things should be tangible. But should that entirely be the reason for discriminating reality from unreality? No one has seen or touched God. But majority of humans believe that he is real. That is undisputable, hence it puts the theory of Siri's unrealism to bed.

  A person who is high on some hallucinogenic substances can smell colors and see sound. That is absurd to the "unhigh" human, hence we conclude that it is not real.

  Nonetheless, to such individuals those feelings are real for the duration of substance action. Does the drug place in another plane of reality, one that is characterised by different sense perception of both space and time? That seems to tend towards the sci-fi reasoning. But let's not go there.

 At the end of it all, we are left confused and all the more bewildered by the barrage of theories put forward by philosophers, past and present, about the true nature of reality.

 So if reality wants to show its true color, I hope that it first explain itself to us.

Black or White

  Black or white, red or brown, the first noticeable difference between people around the world is the color of their skin. And as a consequence, races are classified based on this simple variation. This has led to a lot of controversy, and even physical segregation. The height of this being all out racial discrimination. The notion of racial differences seems absurd and for good reason. My reason would be stated much later.

  First, the word RACE in the context of human existence means what? One definition is, "one of the groups that the world population can be divided into based on physical characteristics such as skin and, or hair color." Another definition, a much broader one, defines race as "humanity as a whole." Examining critically, both definitions cannot be correct, hence the need for expatiating.

  If the general, and obviously correct belief that all humans on earth, come from just one pair of humans, who obviously lived in some part of the middle east, is something to go by, questions such as these arise: Why are we all not of the same skin and hair color; Where did the variation come from; Why did it occur; Does it have any benefit, and if it does, what is it? And to top it all, which of the above definitions are correct?

  To begin, why do we all not have the same skin, hair and eye color? Simply put, we live under different climates around the world. That is putting it mildly though. The human body is made to adapt and protect itself from environmental insult, as long as enough time to adapt is given, and this can be related to. As humans migrated in search of food and all, toward the equator, they were exposed to increased sunlight intensity and for longer hours. This means more exposure to ultra violet radiation. UV-radiation in excess can predispose normal cells to become cancerous. Hence, as a protective measure, the body over time produces more amount of the substance, melanin, which absorbs the UV radiation energy in a way unknown by medical professionals. The effect of absorbing UV radiation is the darkening of the skin. Then, why do the dark skinned people in places away from the equator still maintain their disposition. This is genetic based, some people are predisposed to higher melanin production. And, take note, they are not necessarily domiciled in Africa. The Aboriginal Australians are dark skinned also.

  As an added information, even naturally light skinned people can get a tan, by sunbathing in the open air or using sun lamps. The protective functions of melanin cannot be over emphasized as, sunburns are a visible effect of UV-ray/melanin imbalance i.e. UV-rays is more than can be absorbed by melanin in the skin.

  Thanks for reading all the earlier gibberish, now to the main point.

Which of the above definitions of race is correct? Read the following sentences carefully.
 Genetics scientists and anthropologists have come to the following conclusions:

1 Any two humans randomly picked from any part of the world, are 99.5% genetically alike. The 0.5% difference has been seen to be due the genes that code for characteristics such as susceptibility to certain diseases and response to environmental agents and drugs. Also included are the genes that code for physical traits, those used for racial differentiation. Surprisingly, though, there is an overlapping of traits that bear to relationship to another, thus rendering the clustering of people into discrete racial packages impossible.

2 There are more genetic differences between two people from the same race, than between races. So you have more in common with a person in Finland than with the person in the next state. Funny, right?

3 The history of racial classification is based on social and cultural factors rather than biological. This is seen in colonization, black-white segregations of the United States, the Apartheid in South Africa, and so on.

 In conclusion, as the preceding lines of reasoning have shown, WE HUMANS ARE JUST ONE RACE, WITH VARIETIES, we are all Homo sapiens. Just as the common apple, is just one species with over 7500 varieties.

The Ode to 2015 (without the rhyme)

 And then, there was 2015. Happy to begin. Happy to replace the previous year. You're welcome, with reservations though. The euphoria is at its peak for you, but you know, the downside is still ever constant, obvious and practical. Take a leaf from 2014, it had its good and its bad, but to be realistic it had its good and its worse. Do I expect any different from you, 2015? That's left to see. The realism of the times we live in is catching up on people, and they accept the incoming year with mixed feelings. High optimism was shattered, or should I say people are more aware that "you don't necessarily get what you wish for." The fanfare, though still high and reasonably normal, is just a facade, a mask to hide the scepticism of what you hold, 2015. The speed of time is gradually increasing, but they say it's because we're growing old. What we're sure of is that a new year is here and it would swish by and we are scared, and rightly so. One request, 2015, don't leave me worse than I already am, if you won't make me better.