Few days after the confirmation of a case of Lassa fever in a healthcare worker who had died at the Federal Medical Centre, Abeokuta,  the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, NCDC, NCDC says the country  is prepared to tackle the outbreak. It disclosed that already it has dispatched a team of epidemiologists, to support Ogun State to respond to the outbreak.

“Also an Emergency Operations Centre has been setup and is now monitoring all contacts of the case, disinfecting contaminated areas and coordinating all response activities.

A statement from the Agency explained that the case highlights the risk Lassa fever still poses to the lives of Nigerians, particularly at this time of the year.

“Although this case has attracted media attention, especially given the involvement of a healthcare worker, in reality it is not unique as there has been a trickle of cases from many states in Nigeria, throughout the year.

“The NCDC as directed by the Minister of Health, has been working hard behind the scenes towards preventing the recurrence of the scale of outbreak recorded last year.

The Centre  recalled that between 2015 and 2016, Nigeria recorded one of the largest outbreaks of Lassa fever in its history- reporting 273 cases, including 149 deaths. Of these, 165 cases and 89 deaths have been confirmed through laboratory testing (CFR: 53.9 percent). The cases were reported from 23 states in Nigeria. In response to this, the Honorable Minister of Health inaugurated a Lassa Fever Eradication Committee, under the leadership of Prof. Oyewale Tomori, to look into the situation and proffer solutions to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) towards preventing future outbreaks and reducing the deaths from Lassa fever in Nigeria.

To prevent a large outbreak this year, the NCDC has  commenced preparations early in the year towards implementing a Lassa Fever Prevention Strategy. The core of this strategy is to prevent another large Lassa fever outbreak and ensure that all the states in Nigeria are able to respond to any case.  To enable states know what to do, new guidelines describing all the necessary actions were developed, and is always available for downloading from the NCDC website (http://www.ncdc.gov.ng/diseases/guidelines).