Lassa fever kills three, affects eight new persons in six states

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) yesterday confirmed eight new cases of Lassa fever and three deaths in six states, within one week.

According to the latest update by the NCDC, for Week 14 (April 02-08, 2018), “eight new confirmed cases were recorded from five States – Edo (three), Ondo (two), Ebonyi (one), Plateau (one), and Taraba (one) with three new deaths in confirmed cases from Ondo (one), Ebonyi (one) Taraba (one) and a backlog of an old death in a confirmed case from Kogi state.

“From 1st January to 8th April 2018, a total of 1,781 suspected cases have been reported from 20 states. Of these, 408 were confirmed positive, nine are probable, 1,351 are negative (not a case) and 13 are awaiting laboratory results (pending).

“Since the onset of the 2018 outbreak, there have been 101 deaths in confirmed cases, nine in probable cases. Case Fatality Ratio in confirmed cases is 24.8 per cent.”

The NCDC noted that 20 states have recorded at least one confirmed case across 57 local councils of (Edo, Ondo, Bauchi, Nasarawa, Ebonyi, Anambra, Benue, Kogi, Imo, Plateau, Lagos, Taraba, Delta, Osun, Rivers, FCT, Gombe, Ekiti, Kaduna and Abia).

It, however, noted that nine states have exited the active phase of the outbreak while 11 states remain active.

In the reporting week 14, one new healthcare worker was affected in Ebonyi state with one death. “Twenty-seven health care workers have been affected since the onset of the outbreak in seven states –Ebonyi (16), Nasarawa (one), Kogi (two), Benue (one), Ondo (three), Edo (three) and Abia (one) with seven deaths in Ebonyi (four), Kogi (one) and Abia (one).

According to the NCDC, 81 per cent of all confirmed cases are from Edo (42 per cent) Ondo (23 per cent) and Ebonyi (16 per cent) states; and that fifteen cases are currently being managed in treatment centres across six states -Edo (four), Ebonyi (five), Ondo (four), Plateau (one), and Osun (one).

The NCDC noted that a total of 4,480 contacts have been identified from 20 states and of these 658 (14.8 per cent) are currently being followed up, 3,815 (85 per cent) have completed 21 days follow up while seven (0.2 per cent) were lost follow up.