After killing 2 victims in Bauchi and Taraba states, the National Center for Disease Control has revealed that Lassa fever has now claimed the lives of 121 Nigerians since the beginning of the year.
While giving an account of how far the disease has spread in the country, NCDC explained that Ondo, Edo, Bauchi, Plateau, and Taraba recorded a total of16 new cases just in the last week of March.
According to the institution, “From January 1 to March 31, 2019, a total of 2,034 suspected cases have been reported from 21 states. Of these, 526 were confirmed positive, 15 probable and 1,693 negative. Since the onset of the 2019 outbreak, there have been 121 deaths in confirmed cases. Case fatality ratio in confirmed cases is 23 percent.
“Edo, Ondo, Bauchi, Nasarawa, Ebonyi, Plateau, Taraba, FCT, Adamawa, Gombe, Kaduna, Kwara, Benue, Rivers, Kogi, Enugu, Imo, Delta, Oyo, Kebbi and Cross River have recorded at least one confirmed case across 81 local government areas.
“A total of 6, 489 contacts have been identified from 20 states, of this number, 1,443 cases are being followed up, 4,983 cases have completed 21 days follow up while 112 symptomatic contacts have been identified.”
NCDC further revealed that in Plateau, one of those who had been taking care of Lassa fever patients had also contracted the disease. That increased the toll of health workers affected to 17, across the country.
The report equally stated that about 29 affected persons were receiving treatments in teaching hospitals in Owo and Taraba, while and some others were also being attended to at the treatment centers in states where the disease had been recorded so far.
Stating the steps that the institution had taken to curb the spread of the disease, the report read, “Multi-sectoral health national rapid response teams from NCDC, Nigeria Field Epidemiology and Laboratory Training Programme, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Federal Ministry of Environment have been deployed in Taraba and Bauchi states.”
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