Preventing Lassa Fever Disease through Effective Health Communication in Nigeria

Abstract

Health communication is known to provide information about diseases and their prevention. Lassa fever which is an epidemic prone disease caused by the Lassa virus has claimed lives in different parts of Nigeria since 2015. Despite Lassa fever awareness among people, majority seem not to be adept with the preventive measures. Hence, people still get infected. The methodology used was survey method, having questionnaire as the research instrument administering 854 of them to respondents that were randomly chosen in Ekiti and Ondo State. Findings revealed that respondents adopted washing of hands daily than eating well cooked food, and preference for being clean for the prevention of Lassa fever. The study concludes that an increase in health communication messages on Lassa fever would result in improved behaviour of respondents towards the infection. The study recommends that other preventive measures on Lassa fever should not be sidelined