Lassa fever kills 170 Nigerians in 9 months as 6 die of monkeypox

Lassa fever has claimed 170 lives in 25 states since the beginning of this year, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control has said.

NCDC, in its situation report Friday, said 909 cases were confirmed out of 6,547 suspected cases recorded during the period. 

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It said, “Cumulatively, from week 1 to week 35, 2022, 170 deaths have been reported with a case fatality rate (CFR) of 18.7% which is lower than the CFR for the same period in 2021 (22.7%).

“In total for 2022, 25 states have recorded at least one confirmed case across 101 local government areas.”

The report said of all confirmed cases, 70 percent were from Ondo (31%), Edo (26%) and Bauchi States (13%).

It said the number of suspected cases had increased compared to that reported for the same period in 2021.

The report also said that in week 35, from August 29 to September 4, the number of new confirmed cases increased from five in week 34 to 10 cases.

 “These were reported from Ondo, Edo and Nasarawa States,” the report added. 

The report noted that no new healthcare worker was affected in the reporting week 35.

Meanwhile, another report by the NCDC yesterday said a total of 36 new confirmed cases of monkeypox were recorded in 14 states within one week.

The reports said 100 new suspected cases were reported in epidemiological week 34 (between August 22 and 28, 2022) out of which 36 confirmed cases were recorded.

The 14 states that recorded the confirmed cases are: Lagos (7), Abia (6), Bayelsa (5), Edo (3), Ondo (3), Delta (2), Ebonyi (2), Rivers (2), Anambra (1), Benue (1), Gombe (1), Imo (1), Katsina (1) and Oyo (1). 

The report said six associated monkeypox deaths were recorded from six states in 2022. They were Delta (1), Lagos (1), Ondo (1) , Akwa Ibom (1), Kogi (1) and Taraba (1) . 

It said cumulatively from January 1 to August 28, Nigeria had recorded 704 suspected cases with 277 confirmed cases (186 males, 91 females) from 30 states.