78 confirmed killed in 2018 outbreak - NCDC

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has revealed that the Lassa Fever outbreak of 2018 has led to

In its latest situation report released on March 4, 2018, the agency disclosed that 78 were killed in confirmed positive cases while 24 others died despite being negative, with 8 probable cases still pending. The Case Fatality Rate in confirmed and probable cases is 23.8%.

Of all 1121 suspected cases between January 1 and March 4, 353 are confirmed positive, 8 are probable, 723 are negative and 37 are awaiting laboratory results.

The predominant age-group affected is 21-40 years with the male to female ratio for confirmed cases being 2:1.

The outbreak is active in 18 states namely: Edo, Ondo, Bauchi, Nasarawa, Ebonyi, Anambra, Benue, Kogi, Imo, Plateau, Lagos, Taraba, Delta, Osun, Rivers, Abuja, Gombe and Ekiti; with 85% of all confirmed cases from Edo (44%), Ondo (25%), and Ebonyi (16%).

Between February 26 and March 4, 35 new confirmed cases were recorded from five states: Edo (19), Ondo (5), Bauchi (1), Ebonyi (9), and Plateau (1), with seven new deaths in confirmed cases from three states Ondo (2), Edo (2), and Ebonyi (3).

Two health workers were confirmed positive this week in Ebonyi State bringing the cumulative number of infected health workers across six states to 16.

Of those 16, Ebonyi has 9, Nasarawa (1), Kogi (1), Benue (1), Ondo (1) and Edo (3) with four deaths in Ebonyi (3) and Kogi (1).

NCDC response to the outbreak

The NCDC report indicated that, in partnership with the World Health Organisation (WHO), it has scaled up response at National and State levels as a total of 3126 contacts have been identified from the 18 active states.

Of these, 1586 are currently being followed up, 1485 have completed 21 days follow up and 21 of the 47 symptomatic contacts have tested positive from three states: Edo (11), Ondo (7) and Ebonyi (3).

The agency has also distributed response commodities such as PPEs, Ribavirin (injection and tablets), beds, body bags and hand sanitizers to FMC Owo, FETH Abakiliki, Niger and Ekiti in the reporting week; and has deployed teams to four Benin Republic border states (Kebbi, Kwara, Niger and Oyo) for enhanced surveillance activities.

National Lassa fever multi-partner multi-agency Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) continues to coordinate the response activities at all levels.