Lassa Fever in the country is increasing at an alarming rate as there is a report of 46 new cases in Benue State. This was confirmed by the Benue State Commissioner of Health, Dr Yanmar Ortese, during a press conference that took place in Makurdi.
According to him, there is an outbreak of Lassa Fever currently in the state with 46 reported cases which has resulted in the death of 9 people. Dr Ortese made it known that 5 out of those infected are health workers while four are from the internally Displaced Persons Camp.
In confirmation of the report made by the State Commissioner, Benue State Epidemiologist, Dr Sam Ngishe further explained the current situation in the state, he said,
“The report the Commissioner gave you is based on the situation report for week seven. We have not updated him on week eight.
“Altogether, at this moment as we speak, from results gotten so far, Benue has 46 cases of Lassa fever spread across seven local government areas that include Obi, Okpokwu, Gwer West, Makurdi, Guma, Gwer East and Ukum.
“It is actually an increase compared to what we had last year. So far, we have nine deaths in confirmed cases as we speak.
Also speaking about the various preventive measures that have been taken by the state government to help curb the spread of the disease and to give the affected people the proper treatment, Dr Ngishe stated that, “We have been able to bury all the dead in accordance with safe burial protocols across the various areas of the state where they hail from. We have sustained response through the intervention of the Federal Government, the World Bank, and the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention.
“They have spoken loudly to enhance our surveillance efforts, risk communication (creating social behaviour change) in communities and have also spoken to the laboratory component of the response and coordination.
“Now, we are hoping to reduce the numbers of the deaths such that the key fatality rate for the state is less than 10 per cent, which is what the national expects from all of the states. For now, what we have is above that figure.”
He further added, “We have reported cases in the IDP camps, precisely Ortese and we took several samples as well from the host community but we didn’t pick any other positive case from the samples taken.
“However, there is active surveillance going on in the community as you know, the IDP camp is a cluster setting with very poor infection control in terms of poor sanitation, a crowded environment, and they have issues of malnutrition.
“From our report so far, the IDP camp has a high population of rats; so if the rats transmitting such are within the IDP camps, it means that we need to work hard so we don’t have an outbreak that will be difficult to control.”