The Director General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Dr. Jide Idris, has warned that Nigerians face greater health risks when cases of dengue fever, yellow fever, and other infectious diseases are not properly reported or diagnosed.
Speaking on Channels Television’s The Morning Brief on Monday, July 21, Idris expressed concern over the tendency of many Nigerians to mistake dengue fever for malaria, given their similar symptoms, and to avoid seeking professional medical help.
“But one thing that is important is that if people do not report cases, it is more dangerous for us as a people. The more cases we report, the more attention we give to this,” he said.
He explained that misdiagnoses were common.
“Take, for instance, what happened with dengue fever. Apparently, cases, but they were not diagnosed as dengue; they were diagnosed as malaria or fever,” he said.
He warned against self-medication and urged Nigerians to seek proper diagnosis at health centres.
“Unfortunately, too, malaria, dengue fever, and yellow fever present similarly. That is why, again, do not self-medicate. Try to visit healthcare facilities where this diagnosis can be made,” he added.
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Dr. Idris also called on tertiary institutions with diagnostic capacity to follow the appropriate reporting channels.
“Unfortunately, again, we need to address our colleagues in the tertiary institutions where they have the facility to make this diagnosis.
“Once they make a diagnosis like this or they detect it again, they need to report through the state ministries of health, then to the NCDC, and then we can mount an appropriate response,” he stated.
Highlighting the delay in dengue response, he said, “Unfortunately for dengue fever, some of the cases were going on for two or three weeks before we were alerted. People are just having fever, etc, until we moved people and diagnosed dengue.”
“So that’s the essence of this alert. Let people know what kind of risk we’re facing. We need to let them know what to do and, more importantly, report any case so that we can mount an appropriate response early enough to reduce the number of deaths,” he added.
The Federal Government, through the NCDC, had earlier issued a nationwide alert on July 18, warning of the spread of cholera, dengue fever, Mpox, diphtheria, and yellow fever.
“The situation demands heightened vigilance and intensified response efforts from all stakeholders,” the NCDC said in a statement issued Friday on its website.