Knowledge and preventive practices of Lassa fever among residents of Ife-Odan Community, Osun State, South-West Nigeria

Lassa fever is a disease of public health importance with high mortality and morbidity especially among rural dwellers. Lassa fever is an acute viral hemorrhagic fever caused by Lassa virus. The virus is a single-stranded RNA virus which belongs to the virus family Arenaviridae. It is an old-world arena virus, which is enveloped, single-stranded, and bi-segmented RNA. Lassa fever is a zoonotic disease, the animal reservoir of Lassa virus is a rodent of the genus Mastomys, commonly known as the “multimammate rat.” Mastomys rats infected with Lassa virus do not become ill, but they can shed the virus in their urine and faeces for the rest of their lifetime creating ample opportunity for exposure and transmission The study is a cross-sectional study which was carried out in Ife-Odan community. Ife-Odan, It is a rural community, a town in Osun State which has its headquarters in Ejigbo local government area. The population of Ife-Odan was estimated to be 372,191 according to the national population census of the LGA according to the 2016 national population census. The Sampling technique that was used for this study is Multi-stage sampling technique. The sample size was calculated using the Leslie Kish formula for estimation of single proportions in a population with more than 10,000 inhabitants. The formula used: N= It was observed that Sixty-seven percent of the respondents had heard about Lassa fever, another 58.4% of them knew that rat is the vector. More than half (58.6%), of the respondents knew that the disease is deadly, treatable (53.0%) and survivable (51.9%). Forty-three percent of them say it can be transmitted from one person to another, about half (50.5%) agreed that spreading food by the road side is a risk factor along with poor refuse disposal and dirty environment (50.9%), bush burning (34.9%) and exposing food stuff at home (53.0%). More individuals identified headache (55.3%) as the symptom of Lassa fever. As regards the preventive practices of the respondents, 63.7% eat rats and 36.7% spread food by the road side. Seventy-seven percent of the respondents clear the bush around their homes regularly. Most of the respondents (81.4%) store their food in covered containers and about half them practice bush burning. Two hundred and sixty-eight (62.3%) of the respondents practice unsanitary waste disposal method (open dumping) and large fraction of the population uses rodenticides (76.0%) to kill rats. Significant association was found between respondent’s demographic characteristics, level of education and surprisingly, marital status. Respondents with categorized knowledge scores were assessed. Individuals who were less than 19years of age were realized to have better knowledge about Lassa fever compared to those in other age groups. It was also recorded that Respondents with tertiary level of education have the best knowledge on Lassa fever. Surprisingly, respondents that are single were found to have better knowledge about Lassa fever compared to the married group. These findings are in contrast with studies assessing marital status and its implications on health shown in a previous study.