Our Genius Hour presentation was about the Lassa Fever. The Lassa Fever, also known as LHF or the bleeding fever, is a viral hemorrhagic illness that occurs mostly in West Africa. It mostly affected Nigeria during the 1960’s which resulted in 273 cases and 149 deaths in Nigeria. Next, the Lassa virus is even named after a town in Nigeria.
Notfellchen via Compfight
At first Fatima my group partner, and I wanted to choose ebola. Yet, we decided to choose a narrowed topic such as the Lassa Fever that occurred in a specific country. I am from Nigeria, this credited my level of confidence for this topic. I choose it because, focusing on an illness that occurred specifically in a country such as Nigeria, makes it easier to talk about, more developing and interesting to talk about.
Throughout the process of researching for that topic, I discovered many interesting facts. For instance, I learnt more about the history of the Lassa Fever. Such as how This virus is a member of the virus family “Arenaviridae” which is a single stranded RNA virus*.
Mike Blyth via Compfight
Not only, I also learnt that there is no specific treatment for the Lassa Fever. It is pretty hard to differentiate the Lassa Fever and the Ebola virus because they basically have the same diagnosis and symptoms.
The Lassa Fever actually has 2 phases of symptoms. It ranges between 6-21 days. The first phase is that it starts with Malaise, Weakness and lastly Fatigue. The second phase is when it gets worst. The individual would get a headache, sore throat, muscle pain, nausea, vomiting, chest pain, and bleeding.
Mike Blyth via Compfight
What shocked me the most throughout my research about the Lassa Fever is that it is not specifically airborne. Which means it is not transmitted through humans from air.
Having to research about the Lassa fever made me grow as a person, to be open and learn about my country’s main virus attacks. I want to become a doctor. Having to learn about viruses can actually help me open myself up to the medical world. Having knowledge about viruses such as the Lassa Fever can actually help you survive and help others as well. What I learnt helped me but also others. With this kind of information you can save lives, just by staying clean even.
My next genius hour project, I want it to help through medical use. I want to help a specific community in Senegal. For example helping with medical use, or such as medical materials. This can really help the community in Senegal, but it would increase the life expectancy in Senegal and help the community stay healthy, which is mostly my main goal for my next genius hour project.