By Tobias Lengnan Dapam
The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has said that Lassa fever claimed 43 lives in Nigeria with a total of 615 cases reported across 17 states since the beginning of 2018.
The agency disclosed the figures yesterday in its weekly epidemiological report for Week 5.
According to the report, 193 cases have been confirmed positive to the Lassa fever virus giving a case fatality rate of 23.9 percent.
NCDC report also stated that since the onset of the outbreak, there has been a high case ‘identification rate’ through the use of ‘standard case definition’ employed via the integrated disease surveillance and response (IDSR) strategy.
“This is an indication of an active and improved surveillance system. This in itself, is a part of the case detection process as all cases have to be subjected to laboratory testing for further classification and disease burden estimation.
“Currently, Lassa fever testing is carried out across three (3) laboratories in Nigeria. The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has provided support for all testing laboratories with provision of reagents and other consumables. It is hoped that in the near future, states are able to build and support laboratories to carry out Lassa fever testing,” the report said.
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