Date 2019-05-19
Category Food & Health
Four new cases of Lassa fever have been confirmed from three states in the country, with no new death recorded.
The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) revealed this in its latest Situation Report on the disease for Week 19 which covers May 6 to 12.
Since the onset of the 2019 outbreak, there have been 128 deaths in confirmed cases.
The recent figure shows that two cases were confirmed in Edo and one each Ebonyi and Taraba States respectively.
This brings to 2,426, the total number of suspected cases reported from 21 states between January 1 and May 12, 2019.
Of these, 569 were confirmed positive, 15 probable and 1842 negative (not a case), while case fatality ratio in confirmed cases is 22.5 per cent.
There is at least one confirmed case across 82 Local Government Areas of Edo, Ondo, Bauchi, Nasarawa, Ebonyi, and Plateau.
Others are Taraba, Adamawa, Gombe, Kaduna, Kwara, Benue, Rivers, Kogi, Enugu, Imo, Delta, Oyo, Kebbi and Cross River States, as well as the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
Edo State is leading with 36 per cent, followed by Ondo, Ebonyi, Bauchi, Taraba, and Plateau States with 29, eight, seven, seven, and six per cent respectively.
Predominant age-group affected is 21-40 years while the ratio of male to female for confirmed cases is 1.2:1.
No new healthcare worker was affected in the reporting week, although a total of 18 healthcare workers have been infected in eight states since the onset of the outbreak with two deaths in Enugu and Edo States.
NCDC said eight patients are currently being managed at various facilities such as the Irrua Specialist Teaching Hospital (ISTH) treatment Centre and the Federal Teaching Hospital Abakaliki among others.
It disclosed further that a total of 7,368 contacts have been identified from 20 States and of these, 535 are currently being followed up while 6,765 have completed 21 days follow up and eight others lost to follow up.
The report read, “119 (1.6%) symptomatic contacts have been identified, of which 60 (0.8%) have tested positive.”
The agency gave assurance that the multi-sectoral Technical Working Group (TWG) has continued to coordinate the response activities at all levels.
(Channels TV)
