Officials of Kano state government on Wednesday confirmed the death of 3 persons caused by outbreak of Lassa fever in the state.
The state’s Commissioner for Health, Dr Aminu Ibrahim Tsanyawa, confirmed this at a press briefing on the recent reported Lassa fever outbreak in Kano state.
According to him, the ministry has been notified by Gaduwa reference laboratory in Abuja that two of the aforementioned suspected cases submitted to the laboratory for confirmation have been confirmed positive of Lassa fever disease.
The commissioner added that the index case was a 28 years old pregnant woman from Gwale local government area who became sick two weeks after the death of her mother, who was referred from a private hospital to Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital (AKTH) with date of admission being 31st of December 2019 and who died on 1st January 2020.
He added that the index case was then managed by numerous health care professionals including two confirmed cases at the centre.
“Posing more risks to the state at large, more than 292 contacts have so far been line-listed and are currently being followed up as stated in the management guideline for the disease,” said the health commissioner.
The commissioner further stated that the state government has reactivated the state’s isolation centre at Ýar Gaya, activated the rapid response team, conduct state emergency preparedness and response committee meeting among other effective strategy measures taken in tackling the outbreak.
It could be recalled that, a report had filtered out that, at least three persons died of a suspected deadly Lassa fever at AKTH in Kano.
The report had indicated that the three victims including two medical doctors died few hours after operating a pregnant patient, suspected to be a primary carrier of the Lassa fever virus.
