ProMED: Lassa fever continues in Nigeria

Epidemics can occur anywhere, at any time.

We publish regular updates, produced by Program for Monitoring Emerging Diseases (ProMED), on outbreaks of emerging infectious diseases to keep you informed on the frequency and impact of our priority diseases.

ProMED is the largest publicly-available system conducting global reporting of infectious diseases outbreaks, with ProMED staff, moderators and team members scanning for, reviewing and posting information relating to global health security from official health reports and media articles.

The below post contains information from health reports, news articles, and academic papers relating to our priority diseases, compiled together by ProMED. Content below may be edited from original ProMED posts for style and length.

These posts provide an overview of disease outbreak activity over the past several weeks. For the latest information relating to outbreaks of infectious diseases, please visit the ProMED website.

Lassa

Location

Nigeria

 

Outbreak Update

Nigeria Centre for Disease Control:

In the reporting week 40 (30 Sep-6 Oct 2019) 7 new confirmed cases were reported.

From 1 Jan-6 Oct 2019, a total of 4019 suspected cases have been reported from 23 states. Of these, 721 were confirmed positive, 18 probable, and 3256 negative (not a case).

Since the onset of the 2019 outbreak, there have been 154 deaths in confirmed cases. Case fatality ratio in confirmed cases is 21.4%.

Predominant age-group affected is 21-40 years.

The male to female ratio for confirmed cases is 1:1.

A total of 19 health care workers have been infected since the onset of the outbreak in 10 States.

A total of 8345 contacts have been identified from 21 states. Of these 396 (4.7%) are currently being followed up, 7872 (94.3%) have completed 21 days follow up, while 12 (0.1%) were lost to follow up. 132 symptomatic contacts have been identified, of which 65 (49.2%) have tested positive.

National Lassa fever multi-partner, multi-sectoral Technical Working Group (TWG) continues to coordinate response activities at all levels.

See the full ProMED post

 

Ebola

Location

Democratic Republic of Congo

 

Outbreak Update

World Health Organization Africa Region Ebola Dashboard:

3248 cases (including 4 new confirmed case), of which 3131 confirmed.

117 probable cases, 426 suspected cases.

50 cases in the last 21 days.

1044 survivors.

2169 deaths.

4300 contacts being followed out of 5300 identified.

 

Outbreak Response

Vaccination of taxi motorcyclists continues in the sub-coordinations of Butembo, Beni, Mangina in Mabalako in North Kivu and Mambasa in Ituri.

Since the start of vaccination on 8 Aug 2018, 240 494 people have been vaccinated.

See the full ProMED post