Nigeria: Fighting lethal Lassa fever
Nigerian health officials are working to contain a resurgence of Lassa fever, a highly infectious disease that has killed at least eight people in the past month.
KANO, 5 March 2009 (IRIN) - The World Health Organization (WHO) said over 93 cases of the virus had been confirmed in the capital Abuja and neighboring Nasarawa state since December.
At the Irrua Specialist Teaching Hospital in Edo state, confirmed cases rose by 60 percent between from December to January.
“That is a major increase and furthermore these are just the cases we hear about in hospital,” Marguerite Lamunu, WHO Lassa fever expert, told IRIN. ”In reality, there will probably be many more cases and deaths in the community, plus the disease is spreading from state to state”.
Lassa fever is an acute viral hemorrhagic condition transmitted through contact with the urine or faeces of rodents, especially rats and shrews. It was first discovered in 1969 in the town of Lassa in northern Nigeria's Borno state.
Lassa fever can also be transmitted through direct contact with the bodily fluids and faeces of an infected person or through airborne particles, according to Osi-Ogbu.
"We have an epidemic on our hands,” Ogugua Osi-Ogbu, head of Lassa fever prevention and care at the National Hospital (NHA) in Abuja, told IRIN.
The disease, which has an incubation period of one to three weeks, has become endemic in parts of West Africa, where it kills at least 5,000 people each year among 300,000 to 500,000 cases, according to WHO.
The illness is especially severe late in pregnancy, killing the foetus and/or the mother in more than 80 percent of cases.
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