Lassa Fever has killed 118 People In eight Weeks

The number of people killed from the outbreak of Lassa fever since the beginning of the year has risen to 118.

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) disclosed this in its situation report on the disease.

It explained that the figure covered between January 1 and February 23.

No fewer than 2,633 cases of Lassa fever have been reported since the beginning of the year, out of which 689 cases were confirmed to be positive.

The cases were reported in 115 local government areas from 27 states of the Federation.

In the eighth week – February 17-23 – which the latest NCDC report focused on, 102 of 456 reported cases from 46 local government areas from 18 states were confirmed.

The states include Ondo, Ebonyi, Edo, Bauchi, Plateau, Benue, Lagos, Enugu, Gombe, Kaduna, Katsina, Kogi, Sokoto, Taraba, Delta, Rivers, Adamawa, and Nasarawa.

A total of four new healthcare workers were also affected in Edo and Ondo States in the reporting week.

The NCDC confirmed that the number of suspected cases has significantly increased compared to the figure reported for the same period in 2019.