The Federal Government has set up an emergency response centre to check the rising cases of Lassa fever in Nigeria after 26 people were killed in the past three weeks according to report from the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC).
The NCDC said last week that it had activated the national Lassa fever Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) in response to the outbreak in some parts of the country.
Statistics has it that “As of 23rd January 2022, a total of 115 confirmed cases with 26 deaths (a case fatality ratio of 22.6%) have been reported,” the NCDC said. “These cases were reported from thirty (30) local government areas (LGAs) across eleven (11) states.”
The rate of infection in Nigeria typically increases around the start of the year, a phenomenon that is linked to the dry season. The virus takes its name from the town of Lassa in northern Nigeria, where it was first identified in 1969.
Endemic to Nigeria, Lassa fever belongs to the same family as the Ebola and Marburg viruses, but is much less deadly.
The virus is spread by contact with rat faeces or urine or the bodily fluids of an infected person. Most of those infected do not show symptoms but severe bleeding and organ failure can occur in about a fifth of cases.
