Lassa fever deaths hit 119 with 376 confirmed, 1,495 suspected cases

Latest update on Lassa fever outbreak in the country showed that the disease has in one week killed five more people with 11 new confirmed and 109 fresh suspected cases.

With last Monday’s 114 deaths, 1,386 suspected and 365 confirmed cases, this means the dead has risen to 119, figures for confirmed and suspected cases to 376 and 1,495 respectively.

The latest update also showed that the disease has become more fatal with the Case Fatality Ratio (CFR) increasing from 24 per cent to 24.7 per cent.According to the Lassa fever outbreak update released yesterday by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), “in the reporting Week 11 (March 12-18, 2018) nine new confirmed cases were recorded from four states: Edo (two), Ondo (two), Bauchi (one), and Taraba (four) with three new deaths in confirmed cases from Taraba Edo and Ebonyi.

“From 1st January to 18th March 2018, a total of 1,495 suspected cases. Of these, 376 confirmed positive, nine are probable, 1,084 are negative (not a case) and 26 are awaiting laboratory results (pending).

“Since the onset of the 2018 outbreak, there have been 119 deaths: 86 in positive-confirmed cases, nine in probable cases and 24 in negative cases. Case Fatality Rate in confirmed and probable cases is 24.7 per cent.”

According to the report signed by the Chief Executive Officer (CEO)/National Coordinator of NCDC, Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu, 19 states have recorded at least one confirmed case across 56 Local Government Areas (Edo, Ondo, Bauchi, Nasarawa, Ebonyi, Anambra, Benue, Kogi, Imo, Plateau, Lagos, Taraba, Delta, Osun, Rivers, FCT, Gombe, Ekiti and Kaduna).

The update noted that nine states have exited the active phase of the outbreak, 10 states remain active, no new healthcare worker was affected and 17 health care workers have been affected since the onset of the outbreak in six states –Ebonyi (nine), Nasarawa (one), Kogi (two), Benue (one), Ondo (one) and Edo (three) with four deaths in Ebonyi (three) and Kogi (one).

The report noted that 83 per cent of all confirmed cases are from Edo (43 per cent), Ondo (24 per cent) and Ebonyi (16 per cent) states and 38 cases are currently under treatment in treatment centres across six states (Edo (10), Ondo (eight), Ebonyi (four), Bauchi (10), Taraba (five) and Plateau (one).

Also, a total of 3,675 contacts have been identified from 19 states of which 805 are currently being followed up, 2863 have completed 21 days follow up while seven were lost follow up and 23 of the 59 symptomatic contacts have tested positive from three states (Edo-12, Ondo-seven, Ebonyi- three and Kogi -one).