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HEALTH-VIRUS-NIGERIA
Lassa fever kills 29 in Nigeria
LAGOS, Jan 26, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – Nigerian health authorities have announced
stepped-up emergency measures to tackle a rise in Lassa fever cases after 29
people died this month.
“As at 24th of January 2020, 195 confirmed cases and 29 deaths had been
reported in 11 states,” the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) said in
a statement Saturday.
A national emergency operations centre had been activated to coordinate the
response “to the increasing number of Lassa fever cases” across the country.
Endemic to Nigeria, Lassa fever belongs to the same family as the Ebola and
Marburg viruses, but is much less deadly.
The virus is spread by contact with rat faeces or urine. It starts with
fever and can, in worst case scenarios, lead to severe bleeding and organ
failure.
Nigeria declared an outbreak of Lassa fever a year ago and around 170
people died from the virus in 2019.
The number of cases usually climbs in January due to weather conditions
during the dry season.
Almost 90 percent of the recent confirmed cases have been in Edo, Ondo and
Ebonyi states in southern Nigeria, but their have also been deaths in the
north.
The NCDC said that compared to the same period last year the fatality rate
had dropped from 23.4 percent to 14.8 percent.
It encouraged Nigerians to “practise good hygiene and take measures to
protect themselves and their families”.
Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation with a population of some 200
million, has five laboratories with the capability to diagnose Lassa fever.
BSS/AFP/SSS/1907 hrs