To date, the current Lassa fever outbreak has been ongoing for seven weeks and has recorded about 70 deaths.
A total of 913 suspected cases of the disease have been reported across Edo, Ondo, Kogi, Ebonyi, Bauchi, Plateau, Gombe, Kaduna, Taraba, FCT, Oyo, Delta, Nasarawa, Anambra, Osun Benue and Lagos states. 317 of these cases have been confirmed positive and about 70 deaths recorded.
Most of the case burden has been in Edo, Ondo and Ebonyi. The numbers recorded so far have been higher than the Lassa outbreaks recorded in Nigeria before now.
The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has reported that Emergency Operation Centres (EOC) have been set up in all the states where the outbreak occurs. The EOC serves as the command centre for all activities during the outbreak. The National Lassa fever EOC operates on six major pillars, namely:
- Coordination
- Surveillance/epidemiology,
- Case management/infection
- Prevention and control/safe burial
- Risk communication
- Logistics and supplies and laboratory
At this time, Lassa fever testing is carried out across three laboratories in Nigeria. These laboratories are: Institute of Lassa fever Control located in Irrua Specialist Teaching Hospital (ISTH), Irrua, Edo State; National Reference laboratory, Gaduwa, Abuja; and the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LUTH).
All tertiary hospitals in Nigeria are expected to have the capacity to manage cases of Lassa fever.
However, we can ascertain the following Hospitals are currently managing or have previously managed cases of Lassa fever:
- Irrua Specialist Teaching Hospital Edo
- Federal Medical Centre, Owo
- Federal Teaching Hospital, Abakaliki
- Lagos University Teaching Hospital, Idi-Araba
- Jos University Teaching Hospital
Other tertiary institutions confirmed to have isolation units are:
- Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital Kano
- Federal Medical Centre,Katsina,
- Federal Teaching Hospital Gombe
- Federal Medical Centre, Yola
- Nnamdi Azikiwe University Teaching Hospital, Nnewi Anambra,
- Federal Medical Centre Ebute Metta
- National Hospital Hospital, Abuja.
There are restrictions on who has access to the isolation and treatment units, given the infectious nature of the disease as well as for patient’s privacy.
To learn more on Lassa fever, prevent, treatment and story so far, please click on the links below:
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