THE Nigeria Centre for Diseases Control, NCDC, has confirmed 16 deaths from 60 cases of Lassa fever even as 590 out of 593 contacts are currently under watch in eight States of the Federation since the beginning of the year.

Giving this development in an update, on Tuesday, the Director General of the NCDC, Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu, said machinery was in place to contain the outbreak.

“Given this increase in reported cases of Lassa fever, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control has declared this an outbreak and activated an Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) to coordinate the response.”

He said as at 13th of January, a total of 60 confirmed cases have been reported in eight states.”

According to the latest situation report from 1st to 13th January 2019, a total of 172 suspected Lassa fever cases were reported. Of these, 60 were confirmed positive and 112 negative (not a case).

“Since the onset of the 2019 outbreak,there have been 16 deaths in confirmed cases. Case fatality rate in confirmed cases is 26.7 percent. and the Eight states affected are....Continue Reading on https://www.happigist.com/news/so-sad-16-persons-have-been-confirmed-dead-as-lassa-fever-sweeps-8-states-in-nigeria/