ProMED: Rift Valley fever hits Sudan

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.

Rift Valley fever

Location

Sudan
 

Outbreak Update

There are 193 Rift Valley fever (RVF) cases - including 4 deaths - reported in Red Sea, River Nile, and Khartoum states since the onset of the disease on 28 Sept until 22 Oct 2019. The majority of cases (100) are in Red Sea. Of all cases reported, 94.8% have affected people over 5 years of age, and 83% are male.
 

Outbreak Response

Similar to the dengue response, the Sudanese Ministry of Health has activated response taskforce meetings and developed state-level preparedness and response plans. There has been a joint investigation by the Sudanese Ministry of Health, World Health Organization, and the Ministry of Animal Resources (MoAR) in locations where the outbreak has occurred.

Case definition and management training has been provided to 131 medical staff, and an isolation center has been established in Tagadom hospital in Red Sea state. In addition, 2200 mosquito nets have been distributed, 1330 homes have been inspected for breeding sites, and 3542 homes have been fogged in the state. Health promotion activities have been carried out at the household and community levels.

See the full ProMED post


 

Lassa fever

Location

Nigeria
 

Outbreak Update

In the reporting week 41 (7-13 Oct 2019), 5 new confirmed cases were reported.

From 1 Jan-13 Oct 2019, a total of 4099 suspected cases have been reported from 23 states. Of these, 726 were confirmed positive, 19 were probable, and 3354 were 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 21.2%.

Predominant age group affected is 21-40 years (range: greater than one month to 98 years; median age: 34 years). The male-to-female ratio for confirmed cases is 1:1.

A total of 8392 contacts have been identified from 21 states. Of these, 360 (4.3%) are currently being followed up, 7955 (94.8%) have completed 21 days follow-up, while 12 (0.1%) were lost to follow-up. A total of 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