Lassa fever has killed 171 persons in Nigeria since January, the latest data from the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) showed today.
The data, released for week 37 this year, revealed stagnation in deaths, though with an additional 70 suspected and six confirmed cases from the previous week.
From the data, The ICIR reports that the disease has killed twice the number of people who died from it within the same period last year.
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Since January, there have been 6,732 suspected and 923 confirmed cases of the disease, from which 171 have died.
Case fatality has been 18.5 per cent.
Cases were recorded from 102 local government areas in 25 states.
Compared with the same period in 2021, there were 3,080 suspected and 370 confirmed cases. The death toll stood at 86, while case fatality was 23.2 per cent.
The cases were from 62 local government areas in 14 states.
Of all confirmed cases in 2022, 71 per cent are from Ondo (32 per cent), Edo (26 per cent), and Bauchi (13 per cent) States.
No new healthcare worker was affected in the reported week 37.
According to the NCDC, the National Lassa fever multi-partner, multi-sectoral technical working group would continue to coordinate the response activities at all levels in the country.
The ICIR reported how 168 persons had died from the disease in August.
According to the United States Centre for Disease Control, Lassa fever is an animal-borne, or zoonotic, acute viral illness spread by the common African rat.
It is endemic in parts of West Africa, including Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea and Nigeria.
The Centre notes that there are about 100,000 to 300,000 infections of Lassa fever annually worldwide, with approximately 5,000 deaths.
The World Health Organization says humans usually become infected with the Lassa virus through exposure to food or household items contaminated with urine or faeces of infected Mastomys rats.
Marcus bears the light, and he beams it everywhere. He's a good governance and decent society advocate. He's The ICIR Reporter of the Year 2022 and has been the organisation's News Editor since September 2022. Contact him via email @ [email protected].