Doctor's Lassa Fever Death Sparks Fear In Nigeria

The death of a young doctor has sparked intense debate on social media in Nigeria.

The female resident died from Lassa fever in the Federal Medical Centre, Umuahia, in the eastern Abia State.

The country is currently in the midst of an outbreak of the disease which killed 90 people - including health workers - in the first two months of this year alone.

One fellow doctor took to social media to say she was no longer prepared to put her life at risk without the government providing proper protection equipment:

Lassa fever kills female resident Dr of paediatrics of FMC Umuahia, Abia State. She died in Irrua Specialist. The fight is still in. I will keep shaking this table. We need personal protective equipment or I won’t touch anyone with symptoms. Naija had not ready to die for!

The doctor is not alone in her concerns.

Dr Adebayo Sekunmade - who is president of the Association of Resident Doctors at Lagos University Teaching Hospital - said equipment needed was simply not available.

“The fact that the hazard allowance is a joke is not something that will encourage doctors to make sacrifices for their patients," he told BBC Pidgin.

“In that light, I think most doctors think twice before attending to patients with Lassa fever and other potentially dangerous conditions in patients.”

But the medical director of the hospital where the young doctor died defended their systems, saying it was the first death they had recorded.

“We observe universal safety precaution and all we are trying to do also is to review and strengthen what is already available in the hospital," he said.

“Nobody for sure can say that the doctor contracted the disease from the hospital, if it were possible to say so then we could say something else happened.”