Lassa Fever: Nigeria’s death toll reaches 176 amid coronavirus outbreak
- As Nigeria battle coronavirus, the death toll on the Lassa fever epidemic has reached 176
- This was revealed by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) on Thursday, March 26
- States like Abia, Bauchi, Benue, Ebonyi, Edo, Enugu, FCT, Gombe, Kogi, Plateau and Taraba have recorded new cases in the last week
The death toll from the Lassa fever outbreak in Nigeria has risen to 176 and recorded 932 cases.
This was revealed by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) on Thursday, March 26.
Nigeria is currently dealing with its largest Lassa fever outbreak. 161 Nigerians have died. Some of them are health workers.
The country has been battling Lassa fever for 50 years and it is diagnosed all year round but spikes during the dry season.
States like Abia, Bauchi, Benue, Ebonyi, Edo, Enugu, FCT, Gombe, Kogi, Plateau and Taraba have recorded new cases in the last one week.
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This year, 27 states have recorded at least one confirmed case across 125 local government areas and the cases are mostly from Ebonyi, Edo and Ondo.
There is also no vaccine yet to prevent the spread of the virus just like the coronavirus.
Meanwhile, some experts have cautioned that Nigeria should take necessary action to tackle tuberculosis (TB) in the country, noting that it is worse than coronavirus.
The experts made the comment at the Pre-World TB media briefing in Abuja on Tuesday, March 17.
The experts say hile coronavirus kills about 60 people daily, tuberculosis kills over 3,000 people daily worldwide.
They called on the Nigerian government to pay serious attention to TB, stressing that it is a more dangerous disease than the dreaded coronavirus.
In a related development, the federal government has alerted Nigerians to the existence of an android-based malicious and fraudulent coronavirus ransomware application.
Minister of information and culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed raised the alarm via a press statement on Tuesday, March 24.
Mohammed said the application claims to provide updates on the virus and infections near the user but blocks access to users' personal data and accounts and threatens deletion unless users pay One Hundred US Dollars ($100) in Bitcoin within 48 hours.
Similarly, as misinformation on the dreaded coronavirus spreads, an initiative - FactCheck - focused on preventing the spread of fake or misleading news, gossips and stories across Africa have been launched in the Nigerian capital, Abuja.
FactCheck is a registered non-profit development organization focused on reality-checking and unique insightful reporting.
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