Lassa fever: College begins eradication of rats in Oyo markets

The Oyo State College of Health Science and Technology has begun extermination of rats in markets across the state, to stop transmission of Lassa fever in the state.
This was made known at a press briefing in Ibadan on Wednesday, by the Chairman, Governing Council of the College, Dr. Ola Ogundiwin, and the Provost of the College, Siji Ganiyu.
Ogundiwin said, that the school which was established in 1933 is at the forefront of training middle-level manpower in the field of environmental health and had always contributed in no small way to the overall health of the people of the state and even beyond.
He recognised the contribution of the college as one of the factors that attracted Nigerian Connect, a non-governmental organisation, based in Dallas, United States to donate books worth $55,000 to the college in December 2021.
“The school has carried out market sensitisation rallies again Lassa fever and other public health issues. We are enjoying the support of Governor Seyi Makinde and we also still need the support of the people bad the media,” Ogundiwin said.
He said the programmes of the college have accreditation of the National Board for Technical Education while debunking the report of a radio station that students were forced to pay so much for accreditation of Dental Surgery Technician programme.
The provost of the college said the school reached out to the state government for assistance on sensitisation and ‘deratisation’ of markets
He said, “We organised market public awareness rallies and we also gave some chemicals to market women to ‘deratise’ the markets.
“We approached the government and the fund was released for the purpose. Lassa fever is vector born disease and the vectors are multimammate rats.”
Speaking on why open defecation has not stopped, the provost said some houses lack toilets, adding that some owners even converted places meant for toilets to shops to make more money.
“Before a building plan could be approved in the time past, environmental health officer must have approved that such building had sanitary conveniences. But that does not happen again.
”To end open defecation, what we can do is is to ensure that building plans pass through environmental health officers before town planners give their approval,” he added.

PHW