Taraba Records 46 Lassa Fever Deaths In 1 Year — WHO

Taraba State has been identified among five states with highest number of confirmed Lassa Fever cases in the country, recording 46 deaths from 100 confirmed cases in one year.

The Surveillance Officer with the World Health Organization (WHO) in Taraba State, Halilu Sani Abubakar disclosed this during a meeting with Community Health Workers’ and Media Executives on Community-Led Intervention for Lassa Fever at Ardo-Kola local government area of the State.

Abubakar said about 380 cases were suspected across 16 local government areas, out of which 100 cases were confirmed in four local governments with 46 fatality recorded in one year.

The WHO surveillance Officer, who identified Jalingo, Bali, Ardo-Kola and Gassol local government areas as red spots for the disease, attributing the high prevalence to reason Taraba top list of states with the highest cases of Lassa Fever in the country.

“Taraba is one of the five states that are most affected with the cases of Lassa Fever in the whole country. In our state, all the local government have reported cases of suspected Lassa Fever, but however, the highest number of the suspected cases is coming from Jalingo, Bali, Ardo-Kola and Gassol local government areas.

“For the number of cases that were confirmed as well, Jalingo has the highest number, then followed by Bali, Ardo-Kola and Gassol in that order. In the whole state, the case fatality rate is about 46%. We have 63 that are confirmed to be Lassa positive.

“Out of 100 cases that we reported and are confirmed to be Lassa fever, 46 of them died, which means, the case fatality rate is very high.

“Perhaps people don’t normally report these cases on time. This is not unconnected that they are not very clear or ignorant about Lassa Fever,” the WHO Surveillance Officer said

He said, the essence of the meeting was to sensitise the people on the signs, symptoms and risk to humanity, as the pilot for the community led intervention was to mitigate the epidemic in the state.

The representative from the Taraba State Ministry of Health at the event, Dahiru Zakari said efforts were ongoing by the state government to eradicate cases of Lassa Fever in the state.