Fred Ezeh, Abuja
Nigeria Center for Disease Control (NCDC), has disclosed that no fewer than 143 people have died of Lassa fever in Nigeria between January and November this year.
The Center was afraid that the number could rise due to high number of suspect cases from across the prone states that is being managed by the Center.
NCDC in its weekly Lassa fever situation report indicated that five new cases of Lassa fever was few weeks ago, reported in Edo (3) and Ondo (2) with no new death.
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It confirmed that from 1st January to 11th November, a total of 3016 suspected cases was reported in 22 states, out of which 559 were confirmed positive, 2, 440 persons confirmed negative and 17 persons placed under probables.
The report equally noted that 83 percent of all the confirmed Lassa fever cases were from Edo (46%), Ondo (24%) and Ebonyi (13%) states
The report further revealed that, at least, a case of Lassa fever was confirmed in 90 Local Government Areas in Edo, Ondo, Bauchi, Nasarawa, Ebonyi, Anambra, Benue, Kogi, lmo, Plateau, Lagos, Taraba, Delta, Osun, Rivers, FCT, Gombe, Ekiti, Kaduna, Abia, Adamawa and Enugu states.
It equally revealed that 43 health care workers have been affected since the onset of the outbreak in seven state, in addition to 8, 984 contacts that have been identified from the 22 states.
“Of these, 591(6.6%) are currently being followed up, 8, 264 (92.0%) have completed 21 days follow up while 15 (0.2%) were lost follow up. 114 persons (1.3%) symptomatic contacts have been identified, of which 36 (0.5%) have tested positive from five states-Edo 20, Ondo 8, Ebonyi 3, Kogi 3, Bauchi 1 and Adamawa 1.”