Fred Ezeh, Abuja
With 136 confirmed cases of Lassa fever, 31 death and 22.8 percent fatality rate, the Nigeria Center Disease Control (NCDC), said that Nigeria has exceeded the emergency threshold for Lassa fever.
The Centre said its Lassa Fever Emergency Operations Centers (LF-EOC), have been effective in management system for outbreak response and coordination.
The Center in its epidemiological report, revealed that between 1st-13th January, a total of 172 suspected case were reported. 60 cases were confirmed positive and 112 negative (not a case).
It said that since the onset of the 2019 outbreak, there have been 16 deaths among confirmed cases. Fatality rate in the confirmed cases was 26.7 percent.
It said that eight states recorded at least one confirmed case across 17 LGAs (Edo, Ondo, Bauchi, Nasarawa, Ebonyi, Plateau, Taraba and FCT) and remain active. National rapid response team were equally deployed to Edo, Ondo, Bauchi, Ebonyi and Plateau states.
It added that Lassa fever alert mail has been sent to all states in preparedness for high transmission season, in addition to NCDC prepositioned personal protection equipment, Ribavirin (injection and tablets), beds, Tents, body-bags, thermometers, hypochlorite hand sanitizers and other materials being distributed to 36 states, FCT and treatment centres.
The Center however assured stakeholders that the Lassa fever national multi-partner, multi-agency Technical Working Group (TWG) would continue to coordinate response activities at all levels.