Lassa Fever: Nigeria records 11 new deaths – NCDC

Nigeria Centre for Disease Control has said Nigeria has recorded an additional 11 deaths from the ongoing Lassa fever outbreak.

This brings the number of total deaths to 132.

NCDC during its situation report discovered that though cases are on a decline, Nigeria recorded 85 new confirmed cases and 11 deaths.

Nigeria in the last ten weeks has been battling the scourge of the Lassa fever outbreak in Nigeria.

Although news of the Lassa outbreak in the country has been overshadowed by the new coronavirus outbreak, Nigeria is still monitoring and responding to the disease.

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NCDC said for the reporting week nine, a total of 421 suspected cases, 85 were confirmed and 11 deaths reported from 30 local governments in nine states.

These states are Edo, Ondo, Ebonyi, Bauchi, Plateau, Benue, Kogi, Taraba and Kebbi

It said the number of new confirmed cases decreased from 102 cases in week eight, to 85 cases in week nine.

Cumulatively, for week one to nine, a total of 3054 suspected cases, 775 confirmed cases, nine probable and 132 deaths have so far been reported from 118 local governments in 27 states.

In comparison with previous year, there have been more suspected, confirmed and death cases reported for the same period this year.

In Summary, from week one to week nine, this year, 3054 suspect cases, 775 confirmed and 132 deaths have been reported as against 1374 suspected cases, 420 confirmed and 93 deaths for the same period in 2019.

Of all confirmed cases, 73 per cent are from Edo (34 per cent ), Ondo (32 per cent) and Ebonyi (7 per cent ) states.

Also, the predominant age-group affected is 21-30 years and the male to female ratio for confirmed cases is 1:1.2.

One new healthcare worker was affected in Edo State in the reporting week. This brings the total number of health workers so far affected since the beginning of outbreak to 27.