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Lassa fever kills 35, infects 76 in Nigeria

Friday Olokor,

The Federal Government has put the number of reported cases of Lassa Fever outbreak in eight states at 76 with 35 deaths already recorded and 14 cases confirmed by laboratories.

The government, which said measures had been put in place to curtail further spread and reduce mortality among those affected, however, ruled out placing travel restrictions from and to areas currently affected.

The Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole, who stated this in a statement he issued on Wednesday in Abuja, in response to the outbreak of Lassa Fever in the country, added that “the World Health Organisation is being notified of the cases confirmed.”

According to him, Nigeria has been experiencing Lassa fever outbreak in the past six weeks in Bauchi, Nasarawa, Niger, Taraba, Kano, Rivers, Edo and Oyo states.

“The Nigerian government will continue to enhance its surveillance and social health education, information and communication activities to prevent the disease from spreading further in Nigeria and I wish to call for the support and understanding of Nigerians, “ the minister said.

He added, “The total number of suspected cases so far reported is 76 with 35 deaths, and a Case Fatality Rate of 46 per cent. Our laboratories have confirmed 14 cases, indicative of a new episode of Lassa fever outbreak.”

The first case of the current outbreak was reported from Bauchi State in November 2015, followed by cases reported by Kano State and subsequently the other six states.

Adewole added that in response to the reported outbreak, the Federal Government had taken some drastic measures to curtail further spread and reduce mortality.

The measures, he said, included immediate release of adequate quantities of ribavirin, the specific antiviral drug for Lassa Fever to all the affected states for prompt and adequate treatment of cases; and deployment of rapid response teams from the Federal Health Ministry to all the affected states to assist in investigating and verifying the cases and tracing of contacts.

The minister also said clinicians and relevant healthcare workers had been sensitised and mobilised in areas of patient management and care in the affected states, while

“affected states have been advised to intensify awareness creation on the signs and symptoms and general hygiene.”

“Furthermore, it is important to note that Nigeria has the capability to diagnose Lassa Fever and all the cases reported so far were confirmed by our laboratories. However, because the symptoms of Lassa Fever are so varied and non-specific, clinical diagnosis is often difficult, especially early in the course of the disease,” Adewole stressed.

The minister added that in view of the steps so far taken, he had directed that all health facilities in the country should emphasise routine infection prevention and control measures and ensure all patients were treated free.

He said, “Family members and healthcare workers are advised to always be careful to avoid contact with blood and body fluids while caring for sick persons. No travel restrictions will be imposed from and to areas currently affected.

“Healthcare workers seeing a patient suspected to have Lassa Fever should immediately contact the epidemiologist in the State Ministry of Health or call the Federal Ministry of Health using the following numbers: 08093810105,08163215251, 08031571667 and 08135050005.

While expressing gratitude to the WHO and other partners for their support so far, Adewole said the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control “is already coordinating all our response activities and reporting to me on a daily basis.”

Lassa Fever is an acute febrile illness with bleeding and death in severe cases, caused by the Lassa Fever virus with an incubation period of six to 21 days.

About 80 per cent of human infections are asymptomatic, the remaining cases have severe multi-system disease, where the virus affects several organs in the body, such as the liver, spleen and kidneys.

The onset of the disease is usually gradual, starting with fever, general weakness, and malaise followed by headache, sore throat, muscle pain, chest pain, nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, cough, and bleeding from mouth, nose, vagina or gastro-intestinal tract, and low blood pressure.

The reservoir or host of the Lassa virus is the “multi-mammate rat” called Mastomys natalensis which has many breasts and lives in the bush and peri-residential areas.

Source: Punch, Nigeria.

Lassa fever kills 35, infects 76 in Nigeria

Friday Olokor,

The Federal Government has put the number of reported cases of Lassa Fever outbreak in eight states at 76 with 35 deaths already recorded and 14 cases confirmed by laboratories.

The first case of the current outbreak was reported from Bauchi State in November 2015, followed by cases reported by Kano State and subsequently the other six states.

Adewole added that in response to the reported outbreak, the Federal Government had taken some drastic measures to curtail further spread and reduce mortality.

The minister also said clinicians and relevant healthcare workers had been sensitised and mobilised in areas of patient management and care in the affected states, while

“affected states have been advised to intensify awareness creation on the signs and symptoms and general hygiene.”

Lassa Fever is an acute febrile illness with bleeding and death in severe cases, caused by the Lassa Fever virus with an incubation period of six to 21 days.

The reservoir or host of the Lassa virus is the “multi-mammate rat” called Mastomys natalensis which has many breasts and lives in the bush and peri-residential areas.

Source: Punch, Nigeria.

Polio is Gone From Nigeria, WHO Says

by MAGGIE FOX
Nigeria has been declared free of transmission of polio, leaving just two countries in the world where the virus is still regularly spreading: Pakistan and Afghanistan.

It’s a big step towards the eradication of a disease that paralyzes children for life and that’s easy to prevent with a vaccine that costs just a few cents.

The World Health Organization announcement means that polio is no longer endemic in Nigeria, which was the last country in Africa with regular, ongoing transmission of the virus.

“Eradicating polio will be one of the greatest achievements in human history, and have a positive impact on global health for generations to come,” WHO said in a statement.

“Nigeria has brought the world one major step closer to achieving this goal and it’s critical that we seize this opportunity to end polio for good and ensure future generations of children are free from this devastating disease.”

Vaccine workers battled mistrust and rumors, and worked around attacks by the militant group Boko Haram, to get kids vaccinated against the paralyzing virus, said John Vertefeuille, polio incident manager for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“They would just go out day after day and make sure they were getting vaccine into kids,” Vertefeuille told NBC News.

It’ll be two more years before Africa is declared polio-free. The virus can lurk in the body and it can go unreported in rural areas, so it takes a few years to be certain the virus isn’t popping up anywhere. But it is not being actively transmitted, WHO said.

“The outstanding commitment and efforts that got Nigeria off the endemic list must continue, to keep Africa polio-free. We must now support the efforts in Pakistan and Afghanistan so they soon join the polio-free world,” said WHO director-general Dr. Margaret Chan.

WHO is part of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, which includes national governments, the non-profit Rotary International, the CDC, UNICEF, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. They’ve been pushing hard to eliminate polio, which infects only humans so it could be eliminated by vaccinated, as smallpox was in 1979.

Just 41 cases of polio have been reported globally, compared to 200 cases this time last year.

“As recently as 2012, Nigeria accounted for more than half of all polio cases worldwide,” the Global Polio Eradication Initiative said in a statement.

“Since then, a concerted effort by all levels of government, civil society, religious leaders and tens of thousands of dedicated health workers have resulted in Nigeria successfully stopping polio. More than 200,000 volunteers across the country repeatedly immunized more than 45 million children under the age of five years, to ensure that no child would suffer from this paralyzing disease.”

War and unrest is the biggest barrier to vaccination. Rumors and fears about the vaccine also interfere. Nigerian workers had to fight rumors that the vaccine was deliberately formulated to make Muslims sterile, and one successful approach was getting a vaccine that was manufactured in Indonesia, a Muslim country.

Attacks by Boko Haram, a militant Islamist group that is fighting Nigeria’s government, added to the complications.

Militants still make it very difficult to vaccinate people in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Attacks on vaccination teams make the work dangerous.

“As long as polio exists anywhere, it’s a threat to children everywhere,” the polio initiative group said.

Polio is the virus. Poliomyelitis is the disease caused when the virus infects the spinal cord.

It’s transmitted through contaminated food and water. Most people who are infected develop no symptoms and don’t even know they’ve got it. But in about 1 in 200 cases, the virus destroys the nerve cells that activate muscles, causing irreversible paralysis, usually in the legs. It can paralyze breathing muscles, too, sometimes causing death.

There are two types of vaccine, on oral and one injected. Vaccination has reduced the number of cases by 99 percent since 1988, which polio paralyzed 350,000 children a year. The last U.S. case of polio was in 1979, although many people survive with the permanent effects of the virus.

Missing just a few years of vaccination can allow the virus to come back and spread. Travelers often spread the virus.

“This is a clear example of success under very difficult circumstances. It shows we can eradicate polio if proven strategies are fully implemented,” CDC director Dr. Tom Frieden said in a statement.

“We are moving decisively toward ending a disease that has paralyzed tens of millions of children. In this final mile, we must remain committed to providing the resources and the support to the front lines to make this worthy goal a reality.”

Syria had an outbreak of polio when the fighting there interrupted vaccination programs, and 35 kids were paralyzed by polio in 2013. Groups stepped up vaccination campaigns and there hasn’t been a case reported in Syria since January 2014.