A media guru,Alhaji Ishaq Modibbo has blamed the outbreak of Lassa fever in some parts of the country on the failure of public health system in the country.

Modibbo stated this in a paper entitled 'Media As A Strategic Tool in Healthcare Delivery' which he delivered at a health retreat organised by the Moji Makanjuola led- International Society of Media in Public Health (ISMPH) in Ilorin, Kwara state on Thursday.

He submitted that the outbreak of Lassa fever has also exposed the poor state of the nation's primary healthcare system.

Modibbo, who described Lassa fever as a disease of the poor, lamented poor environmental sanitation and hygiene among people, saying that there would be improvement in public health with cleanliness and availability of potable water.

"Lassa Fever is a quintessential disease of the poor, because it's often directly associated with poor communities in rural and urban settlements around Nigeria. I was in primary school in 1969, when the first cases of Lassa Fever emerged in present day Borno state.

And the re-emergence of the infection in recent months is being associated with the deterioration of primary health care and basic sanitation in our rural communities and increasingly over-populated urban settlements", he said.

Modibbo, who said that the nation's public healthcare system left a lot to be desired, added that Nigeria was still grappling with basic indices in public healthcare delivery that clearly underscored our under-development.

"The budgeting system is not fair enough and the inadequacy makes it difficult to reach basic targets in healthcare delivery", he said.

The media practitioner, who also said that the media have a very important role in communicating the changes that could help to shape the policy thrust and implementation as they affect the field of public health in Nigeria, added that media practitioners must also become specialist in the field of public health, by knowing very intimately the basic issues in the field.

"We must also be able to understand the budgeting processes and how they would impact upon the public health field. That means that conscientious media in the area of public health must be able to report and analyze what the trends are as they affect the entire chain of delivery of public health in our country", he said.

Also speaking, the coordinator of the public health organisation, Mrs. Moji Makanjuola, a former media practitioner with national television station, said the organisation was borne to impact positively on quality healthcare of people of the society.

Mrs. Makanjuola, who said that she discovered a gap in health communication and education in her 25 years of health reporting among Nigerian media practitioners, added that the organisation had mapped out activities to bridge the gap to achieve quality health care system in the country.